SunChild
by Weirdlet
Summary: Genderbent AU series. When Princess yes, princess Zuko was banished from the Fire Nation, she was pregnant- now she must travel the world with a child in tow, seeking the Avatar as the key to her redemption- and her daughter's. Rated for later chapters.
1. Light at the North Pole

The one that started it all… This started as a prompt on an open Avatar: the Last Airbender fic meme, and snowballed from there. The premise- Princess (yes, _princess_) Zuko is pregnant when she is exiled, and must search the world for the Avatar as the one chance of redemption for herself- and her daughter…

…

Little Lan Min reaches out a chubby hand towards the light that pierces the sky, bundled up against the arctic cold and pressed to a fur-lined breastplate.

She's seen every port from Gaoling to Chameleon Bay before her second birthday. She's never felt the languid mugginess of summer in her home nation, or tasted fireflakes at a festival. She goes about in the arms of her mother, a banished princess fallen from grace, the brand of a coward on her face and an adulterer on her scalp, naked but for the lock that marks her once-rank.

There are men who have been broken to pieces and burnt to ash for wanting to tug that lock.

She gets to do it all the time, and her fingers are gently detangled from the pretty strands, her mother's pretty eyes like the jewels in the furnace, and she doesn't recognize sadness yet but there are times when they're like the moon too, far away and lonely when the stars won't come out to play.

Right now they're blazing, in something she'll one day learn is hope.

"Ma-ma-" she starts, and gets a hurried kiss and is passed to Great-Uncle, who is warm and kind and smells of good things. Mama is heading to the bow, standing with her head tilted back, her arms reaching for the spyglass.

_"Helmsman!"_

And the lurching of the boat she knows the word will herald doesn't disappoint, turning them around to chase the pretty lights again.

Lan Min claps in delight, and giggles when Mama takes her back after she's done being shouty. Familiar calloused fingers smooth back her hair and replace her cap, tugging the flaps down around her ears, and Uncle stands nearby to block the wind.

It's going to be a very exciting day.


	2. Meetings: Aang

The second prompt I filled for this AU- the first time Aang sees Lan Min.

…

Aang buzzes through the corridors, checking door after door for his staff. He's outrun the soldiers, misdirected them down a different section while he himself has gone further in. The last door he tried had a man snoring away behind it- now he can hear shouting and clanging footsteps in the distance, and slips into one that's already open, shutting it behind himself to hide.

He comes out of his crouch and turns around to see bright red hangings and gently glowing candles, a hammock and a desk and thick rugs on the metal floor.

In the middle of it all is that Fire Nation girl. She's seated on a large cushion; her breastplate is off and her tunic pushed aside as the toddler in her arms nurses heartily.

"Whoa," says Aang, who's familiar with the basic idea but hasn't ever seen it this close up before.

Or with someone he'd swear was only a handful of years older than he is.

Her face is bright red and blank with surprise, blushing clear past her scalp- and there's a lot of that, which is weird. Still, Aang grins sheepishly and is attempting to back out as her face begins to twist into that snarl he saw back in the village.

"Stop."

The marching that rumbles past the door is a better incentive, but the result is the same- Aang stays still.

The girl-captain rearranges herself slightly- face forward, kid tucked up protectively, chest hidden behind the baby's coal-black hair. Her expression is grim, and Aang is beginning to wonder just how he's going to get out of this one.

"You've never known a father, have you. Being raised by monks and all."

"Ah- no…" he replies, back against the wall and eyes flicking to the corner where his staff is leaning. She catches his movement, and glares harder.

"Then you don't know what it's like, do you. To want one- or to be in want of one. That's why there are laws- strict rules about how one behaves when there could be children involved."

"Uh- I don't know where this is going, but could I _please_ have my sta-"

"No. You are going to listen to me. I broke the rules- I've had to wander the earth trying to find a place for us, where we could be safe-" _loved_, her eyes say. "-and I had almost given up hope."

The littler girl decides she's had enough and turns to look at him, glittering gold-coin eyes in a round, chubby face like a porcelain doll, a smile gaping. Her mother pulls her closer, never wavering her snake's-gaze on him.

"You? You're _her_ ticket to legitimacy. And that's why you're _not. Going. Anywhere,_" she finally growls, and the guards burst in grabbing at his arms and legs-

Aang struggles, but their grip is firm- and later, when Appa has gored through the metal plates and there's half an iceburg burying the bow of the ship, he thinks that he's never going to let himself get distracted by a pretty girl again.

He breaks that vow five minutes later, but it's the thought that counts.


	3. Meetings: Ozai

The prompt- Ozai meets his first grandchild.

…

Princess Zura is nervous. Throughout all the formalities and the welcome-home revels and presentations to the people she has been stoic and hard, the picture of a warrior who has roamed the world and fought valiantly for her people.

Now she looks as though she would like to leap across the barrier of the Imperial Flame and snatch her ill-gotten child from the Firelord's arms.

The Firelord does not deign to acknowledge this, but simply inspects his first grandchild in a perfunctory manner.

He can't tell, just by looking, who the father is. That was perhaps the great scandal of the time, beyond mere defiance, beyond rudeness in the war-room that bordered on treason- one cannot have the royal bloodline being flaunted about so commonly, not only for the honor of the house but the example it sets the rest of the state. He finds the gold-coin eyes are common enough, the skin baby-fair and perhaps on its way to porcelain, if not browned in the sun first.

His daughter watches him, eyes like a dragonhawk's and like a startled komodo rhino as well, the white ring showing all around in fear.

He smiles, and lets the little creature tug on his beard.

Azulon will not like that his sister has returned, with yet another barrier between himself and the highest place he can currently occupy, that of Crown Prince. Yet the prince smiles and preens, the happy brother and young uncle, and Ozai knows that this is the time to watch most carefully, for when Azulon gets frustrated he gets _clever_, and Zura is a walking ball of easy targets.

This child will never be closer to the throne than now, as she sits in his lap and shows no fear from the dancing flames- but he thinks that Azulon had better be very careful about how he goes about clearing his path. _He_ is the one who controls life and death in this kingdom, in this world-

And for now, he chooses to allow his grandchild her life. Zura has bought a great deal of leeway, with the Avatar's death, and that she chooses to spend it on the cause of half her suffering shows her stubborn loyalty, if not her wisdom in its placement.

He suddenly has to pat out sparks that singe his beard, and the dear little thing _giggles._


	4. Questions

The prompt- someone is asking questions about Lan Min's father, and Zura reacts.

(Assume that everyone's about a year or two older than they are in Avatar canon- enough that early love-games and jealousy were a possibility for all involved at the time of banishment.)

…

The full moon is on the rise, and Zura is staring at it over the rail of the ship.

She's heard that the moon turned red, then black, while she was hauling the Avatar across blizzard-burned tundra, seeking a way back to the ship and losing sight of the stars in the howling gale. There are stories, about the terrible rage of the oceans and the loss of half a fleet- the death of a beautiful princess to make the moon rise again.

The thought makes her shudder, and not because she might have been at fault for it (she was there, she could have gotten what she wanted and got out, she _had_, but no one ever said she had to be in the same room to cause trouble).

The moon's still there, though- or there again, pure and shining, and the terrible night of its death has passed away into history.

She doesn't hear Mao ghost up to her until he lets her know with a footfall, knowing better than to sneak up on a soldier.

"You cold?"

"Everything's changed. Nothing has."

"I asked if you were cold, I didn't ask for philosophical nothings." She can feel him resist the urge to roll his eyes, and glowers away to the side- another moment ruined by mutual malfunctions. But he tugs off his long black cloak, rich as sin in the fur of some dead platypus bear, and she lets it settle around her shoulders.

Mao looks at her funny- she can read his ghost-mask better than most, although that isn't saying much- and stands next to her at the metal rail, looking upwards as if he can't quite think of what to say.

The waves slap at the ship's hull for a while.

Her brother's bodyguard looks at her sidelong from under his girlish fringe- he keeps his nails like an Imperial lady's, black and deadly, and no one says him nay. Zura puts her hand in his, feeling the different calluses between them; her nails are short and blank, filed down harshly to keep out of the way.

Mao traces the fuzzy outline of her hair, growing out from the adulteress's cut. Now she has a peasant's shaggy bob, her face a little too sharp for true beauty even under the scar framing her eye like a phoenix-wing.

He leans in and kisses her jaw anyway.

"Stop worrying. Come inside- I'll make you tea."

He learned the art from Lo and Li, Azulon's tutors- he doesn't flatter himself that he knows all their secrets, but he's mastered a trick or two, including some that would blanch his mother's hair if she knew. He's pretty sure Azulon learned a few things as well.

Three years now, Mao's always made a fresh pot.

They drink outside Zura's cabin, after she checks to make sure her daughter is sleeping. Mao looks over her shoulder, and doesn't quite know what to think. She's about the size of his little brother, and he knows that in a few years he might have been expected to produce one or two of his own. It doesn't make it any easier to imagine Zura with a baby, even with everything that's happened, even with it right in front of him, dozing in a tiny hammock.

That mad protective streak that flares up when she touches the blanket, though- _that_ fits. He thinks he can start to reassemble the picture of his exiled first-love-come-home from there.

They talk in low voices, in fits and spurts, avoiding the raw spots as best they can- it doesn't keep them from stumbling on them headlong.

"You know people will talk about us if we're all over each other when we get home." He's level-voiced as ever, as if he's talking about potaturnips for dinner.

"Let them." The reply is short and harsh, and Zura buries anything further in her teacup.

"Is that any good for Lan Min?"

She looks up at him, her good eye blank, her bad eye glaring.

"It's gotta be better than the truth," she finally allows, looking at the floor. The silence fills the air between them for a while, a heavy bubble growing slowly larger until Mao pokes it, more hesitantly than he's ever thrown his needles or his knives.

"…what is the truth?"

A laugh bubbles up in her, something half-hysterical and more than a little like a sob. "I don't know," she says, running her fingers through her ragged, tufted hair. "Even now- I just couldn't tell you, because I don't know. It could be either. It could be _anyone_, if they were stupid enough." Or unlucky enough to get caught in Azulon's little games.

Mao bows his head, mouth in a straight line and eyes hidden. Zura doesn't know if it's from her pain or his.

She looks at the moon out the porthole, and shakes her head, setting down her teacup.

"It doesn't matter. I traded a kingdom's-" _Uncle's_- "freedom for her- if I have to bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se again by _hand_, I'll do it. If anyone asks, I'll say she's the true-born Son of the Sun and anyone who says otherwise is blaspheming."

It really _doesn't_ matter. The Avatar is defeated. She's on a ship bound for home. The moon is still here. _She_ is still here, or here again, even after a night when the world went from red to black and only the death of a princess could have restored her.

_Anything_ is possible.

If she has to, she'll _make_ it happen.


	5. Lan Min Hates Watertribe Food

The prompt- Lan Min hates Water-tribe food.

…

"Come ooon… it's just a little blubber, you'll like it!"

The kid sticks her tongue out, declining the bland, salty chunks that Sokka's trying to spoon into her. He can't believe that they've staged a repeat of the Omashu incident, _and_ after the biggest baddest assault on the Fire Nation attempted in living memory. Not only that, but Katara, in all her unfailing motherliness, is _not_ in the mood right now- and so it's falling to him to keep the little Fire Nation baby out of trouble.

He doesn't want to broach the subject with her- he's honestly afraid of the answer he'll get (something along the lines of 'stop wasting our supplies on the enemy!' is his first bet, and one he doesn't want to win). But, no time for that now, here comes the war-balloon…

"Do you want me to chew it for you? I warn you, there'll be nothing leeeeeft…" he teases. The little girl's glower as she sits with crossed arms upon his knee says plainly that he can _have_ it, and there's something kinda familiar about that pout…


	6. Exile

The prompt- after banishment but before the birth of her child, Zura panics.

…

They check the Air-temples first- the Western one for a start, as it's the closest. Zura is up and around, seeking any sign or hint of information that could help her quest despite not being able to see through one eye and a mood that wavers somewhere between caged fury and shellshock.

Iroh sighs, and writes letters, and makes extremely soothing tea.

…

"One last chance, Zura- one word and all is forgiven. Tell me the father's name."

She looks up at him, trembling, young and strong and utterly outclassed. "I cannot." Tears are spilling down her face and she's trying to remember how it all went so wrong, so fast. "I won't fight you, Father!"

The crowd is murmuring, muttering, shouting, a mishmashed jumble she can't interpret, but she doesn't dare dream it's coming out on her side.

"If you _will_ not you are a coward, and if you _cannot_, that is far worse. And if that is so, then you _will_ redeem yourself the only way you have left. _Fight!_"

She lowers her gaze, and her forehead hits the mat. She wants to be sick, more, to be _anywhere_ but here, to beg forgiveness for sins she hasn't even committed yet-

_Zura bolts from her hammock and dives for the bucket, the smell of her own flesh still burning filling her nostrils_.

…

Zura keeps up the clean-shaven scalp, done first to shame her and take away her beauty in the eyes of the Fire Nation. She wears it openly, brazen in her ugliness, making it proud and strong to hide the shame and weakness she feels.

Iroh thinks he can take that as a good sign- as long as she's defiant, he doesn't think he'll wake up to find that she's filled her sleeves with ammunition and disappeared overboard in the night.

…

Her fifteenth birthday passes, and Zura puts her armor away. Her belly is too round to wear it, and she cannot afford to tailor it or get a new set. Uncle had been generous enough to finance her exile so that at least she can move around to seek the slightest chance at redemption, but she won't tax him for something that she's never going to wear again once she's back in fighting trim.

…

The weeks, and then the months wear on. She's sick with the waves and the shifting colors of the sea, and Azulon whispers in her head at night. There are almost no friendly ports between the Northern and the Eastern Air-temples, and she can hear the grumbling as they take the long, safe, boring way, well away from places where the crew could either draw or spend their pay.

Uncle tries to push away the nameless fears even as the very plain one of mutiny grows. He tries to be understanding, but he understands _too much_- Zura loves her uncle, but she can't trust what he offers. She could be the Face-Stealer himself, and he would offer her tea and a hug.

She isn't sure what reassurance she wants, but she knows she doesn't want it from someone with a vested interest.

…

She's standing on the bow of the ship one night, a small heap of cannon-shot at her feet, her heart in her throat. Hesitant. Completely unsure.

The water is very wide, and very deep, and very cold, and very _wet_. And of all things, she can't help but think this would be either terribly fitting, or just terrible, for a disgraced child of the sun.

Lt. Jee passes by, and she has to turn and acknowledge.

"Lieutenant."

"Princess," he returns, calm even as she turns her face away sharply. "Captain," he continues, corrects, and she has to look back at him, away from the cold lapping of the sea.

"I can't help but think this would be- counterproductive," he says, and Zura's face burns, embarrassed and white.

"_Lieutenant_-" she starts, but can't finish. Tell him what? It's none of his business? What does he know about banishment, overwhelming shame? _He's_ one of the men trapped here on board with her.

"I've been listening amongst the men- some of them have daughters around your age," Jee says, cool as the evening air. "And some of them have expressed concern-"

"They're trapped out here with me," she says bleakly. "A dead-end assignment without advancement or honor or glory. I can hardly bring my bad influence home to their female relatives-"

"I _think_ you misunderstand me," Lt. Jee continues, soothing, low. He never breaks military posture, and that's somehow more comforting than any amount of smothering hugs. "Their concern, their fear, is not so much for the shame that their daughters might have, were they to come to such a pass- but the fear it brings, and the pain. They love their daughters- they don't want to see them hurt by things beyond their control."

He can't mean that. It's all her fault, the mistakes, the speaking out, the disrespect, the _kid_ she can't even- "They were my decisions. How were they beyond my control?"

"You are _fifteen_. Whatever your reasons for being here- at least some of them have come from how you were guided. And your decisions haven't been all bad. Some of us- not just us old-timers, mind- think it's been a hard hand you've been dealt."

The princess glances back at the rail, mouth set, cold moonlight playing on her face.

"Captain. _Zura_-" Were it her brother the prince, he knows that familiarity would get him a blast of flesh-melting heat to the face. "Please. Allow me- as a subordinate, as your lieutenant- to do my job and take stock of the situation for you. You have an esteemed uncle who wishes nothing but the best for you. You have the world and a ship to see it in. You have, and this is not meant as a chain but as- an opportunity not to pass on a bad hand- you have a child on the way."

"What have I got to offer it? I'm _banished_- not to come home until I have the Avatar in hand, who hasn't been seen in a hundred years! I brought shame on my house and my country! How can I possibly fix this? For it, for me, for _anybody_?!"

"If you leave now, we'll never know."

Zura stares at him, trying to keep her face from crumbling, breaking down. The lieutenant changes stance, moving to half-catch, half-accept her ragged embrace. They stand there for a while, him holding, her shaking quietly.

"You're stubborn- that much we've seen," Jee states quietly, and rubs a slow, small circle on her back. "Princess Zura, who never starts a task but doesn't finish it, even if she has to run headfirst into a brick wall fifty times to do it. The men are divided on thinking of you as the mascot or as the leader they're going to want to follow in a few years. They _all_ think it's a rough thing, to be away from home and family in such a delicate way."

She rests her forehead against his armor, tears running down her face. He rests a hand gently on her stomach, other arm braced around his captain's shaking shoulders.

"You'll be wanting some warm wine and a little extra supper, I think," he says, and guides her to his quarters as a guest. When she's well-fed and sleepy, a little too sleepy, he picks her up and takes her back to her own stateroom, tucking her in as if she were his own daughter.

He goes to General Iroh in the wee hours of the morning, and the Dragon of the West is wide awake, although unrested.

"Lieutenant?"

"I was thinking, sir- that it might be time to pull in somewhere and find a village with a good healer. The princess will want a woman or two around in her time of need."

The old man, heavily aged from the triumphant portraits Jee remembers as a child, nods. "I think I know just the place. We can be there in three days and stay until my niece is on her feet again."

Jee nods, and accepts the coordinates to give to the helmsman. When he turns to leave, the general's last words stop him.

"Lieutenant. Thank you."


	7. Birth

The prompt- birth.

…

"After we floated past the Eastern temple, the General figured it was time to put in for shore and wait for the lying-in, and with our princess as she was, well, we figured about the same.

"She's a tough one, our princess, but any girl would want a woman with her when she's brought to the couch, and one who knows what she's doing, not just a soldier-girl who's seen blood and explosions but never handled a child in her life.

"Unfortunately, the journey to the next village we thought was going to take three days took two weeks- the villages 'round about the southern tip of the continent don't take kindly to the Fire Nation, and then you have the cliffs making it a pain to even _get_ to most of them- and Kyoshi may be neutral, but they've no love for us. So the General pushes us up towards the equator- with the princess's permission, of course- and checks around for a good port.

"So we _finally_ arrive and anchor off-shore of this little village where the river meets the sea. We get there thinking we're just in time- and then the kid doesn't wanna move. For two and a half _weeks_, we're stuck in this hot, sticky summer, with the princess waddling around cranky and tired and the locals telling us they'll send by the local healer when it's time. You haven't seen cranky until you've seen our Zura, and one night she just- explodes, orders us to comb the swamps if we have to, but bring that healer by, she wants this kid _out_.

"And that's where things got a little exciting…"

…

It's almost like home in the monsoon season, and for once, Zura is _not_ happy about that.

It's. Too. Fucking. _Hot_.

The air that rises up from the paddies and the brackish waterways under the piers is sticky and fills her too-short breaths up like soup- it beads on her forehead and sticks her robe, good for keeping off the chill out at sea, to her skin. She can hardly move, her head is full of cobwebs and muzzy cotton packing, and the crew move around her chair on the deck skittishly, fearful of her snapping.

The local food's pretty good, though, when she can eat.

Uncle has been making inquiries as to the local midwife or healer in the village, and apparently they make do with some swamp-witch who's known as Mama Binh. They keep saying she'll show up, when it's time, but Zura does not have time for peasant platitudes.

She wants to at least _meet_ the woman before she goes into labor.

The days are long and lazy, and the nights are long and restless. Zura rests on the deck or on the dock, borrowing one of Uncle's fans. Uncle himself is often out in the village, scouring the marketplace for necessary (and not so necessary) things. Lt. Jee doesn't hover- but he checks in on her, when Uncle doesn't, makes sure one of the privates is on hand to bring her cool drinks or run errands, keep the umbrella holding off the sun in place.

She dreams a lot.

When the day's simmering and she fades in and out of dozing under the shade, she doesn't hear crackling skin or Azulon's whispers. Instead, she finds her dreams ranging wider and farther than they have in a long time. Her cousin laughs and plays with her, Lu Ten who's five years dead. They're little again, and play hide-and-seek amid the reeds and the vines and the too-tall trees, splashing mud and getting dirty and not having to make excuses to anyone.

The tall, tall figure of her father picks her up, and he's only a beard and strong hands, no breastplate between her and the sound of his heart.

She sees water dancing, and air whirling with it, and rocks keeping the beat in time. The time that fire gives to it, in flickers and pulses. There are smiles, and strength, and she doesn't know _what_ to think of that one when she wakes up.

The baby rolls in her, and she dreams of her mother, dancing with blades and fire.

Some of them are relaxing. Others put her so off-kilter that she wants to _duel_ something when she gets up.

…

"She hasn't threatened anyone's manhood in two days," says Quan, a midshipman from the Yu-Yan province. The mess is bustling, the crew heartily enjoying the cook's experiment with the local staples. "I'm worried."

He needn't be.

Zura explodes into the mess, face a mask of rage.

"GET OUT! Get out there and _find_ that woman!"

"Is something wrong, Princess?" Lt. Jee rises, grim and business-like.

"_Yes._ The villagers have been giving us the run-around about this healer for _two. Weeks_. I want to know who's delivering my child. I want this _nonsense_ to stop. _I want this kid out_, and that can't happen until this Mama Binh stops making herself scarce!" The princess is gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white.

"Princess Zura-" General Iroh starts, but the teenager's glare gives even him pause. He doesn't quail, but he acquiesces, giving a small nod. "I'll organize a search-party. Lieutenant, if you will come with me-?"

Half the mess-hall empties out, and Zura sits down hard on a bench, resting her head in her hands.

The party is organized in record time, Jee leading a goodly number with orders to find the mysterious Mama Binh if he has to comb through the entire swamp to do it. They set out mid-afternoon, and even after nightfall they don't dare return without her.

…

It's well after midnight, and Zura is pacing the decks, unable to sleep, unable to sit, unable to just _take it easy_ like Uncle Iroh wants her to. He's sitting at a little table near to the rail, just out of range of her path, enjoying a torchlit game of Pai Sho against the guard whose watch it's supposed to be.

There's a faint splash, and a light is moving amongst the ripples in the water. Zura looks over the rail, fire filling her half-clenched hand like a lantern.

"Who goes there?!"

There's two men poling a little flat skiff along in the water below, heads down, backs bent. The red light falls over a plump figure in the middle; a leaf-hat rises to show a wide-smiling, wrinkled face beneath, dark grey eyes twinkling.

"Heard you was lookin' for me- I'm Mama Binh. What's this I hear about a girl in trouble?"

Down at the waterline, there can be heard a distant '_finally_!', and in short order the gangplank's lowered and a small escort of soldiers, dressed fancy as you please, take an old woman's bag and guide her up onto the deck of the big metal ship.

…

Zura waits in her cabin to talk with the old woman, the blazing outrage starting to drain from her and just leaving her tired and scared and almost too tired to be that.

"I just- I need to know what to do. Even after this part's done- there's just so much I don't know how to do, and I don't have anyone to ask," she says, and Mama Binh nods her head, leaf-hat bobbing.

She looks sort of like Lo and Li might have forty years ago, without beautifying treatments or anti-wrinkle stuff or the blood of young virgins. Her hands are tough and knuckley and gentle, and once she settles in, Zura feels like she's in the presence of Uncle, but twenty times more serene.

There are questions, plenty of them, and Zura opens her robes to let the older woman examine her belly. She only starts a little when the woman- the _waterbender_- coats her hands in flowing water and sets them on her, glowing coolly against her skin.

The baby likes _that_, and moves oddly enough to leave her breathless.

"What _was_ that?" she asks, and the look Mama Binh gives her is amused but not unkind.

"That's just gettin' curious. You'll do, my girl- babe'll be along soon, any time now."

"But _when_?" Zura asks, at the end of her wits and her patience. "Hasn't it been long enough?" Mama Binh laughs, and pats her hand firmly.

"Your uncle can tell you- I'd be along when the time came. And so I am. You should rest for now- the hard work will come soon enough."

Uncle knocks then, and she lets him sit with her. He and Mama Binh get to talking in hushed voices, and Zura wants to be annoyed, but the old woman is right, and she's been up more than half the night and soon she drifts off again, feeling the faint rocking of the ship and the weight of her belly where she cradles it.

…

She dreams again.

There's a woman in a whirlwind, blades and blazing flame, and sometimes it's her, and sometimes it's her mother. She fights phantom opponents in the middle of the swamp, the sounds of battle echoing, sunlight blazing down through the leaves and striking her so that she disappears. There's a girl, climbing the bare face of a great tree, grinning and she's so bright it hurts to look at her.

There's her mother, cloak on her back and swords out, and she _plants_ one in the ground and raises the other in guard-stance, and Zura wonders, _what have I forgotten?_

The tide changes, rises, becomes a looming wall of water. Swords out, line drawn, Ursa stands it down.

…

Zura wakes in the morning to find that her back aches, her stomach cramps and she has not, in fact, wet herself.

It just feels that way.

Mama Binh laughs at the face she makes- can she ever _stop_ being cheerful? –and helps her up and about.

"Is it _all_ going to be this nasty?"

"Bein' born's a messy business, same as dyin'- they're both just changes of state, and you can't make anything worth the effort without makin' a little mess," Binh says, bundling the wet robe away while Zura pulls on fresh.

"_That's_ comforting."

An hour or two later, the cramps have become slow and regular, although Zura can feel how they're picking up. There's commotion outside her cabin, from up on deck, and she groans as she remembers the crew she sent out on a wild turkeyduck chase.

Well, nobody's coming to complain about it _now_.

…

"What did _you_ see?"

"I- I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh come on, we all shared!"

"My- my mother-in-law, okay! Hey- stop laughing, she was really nice me-!"

Lt. Jee, acting as if he does not have a twig in his hair and mud in his boots, reports to the General.

"We seem to have encountered- hallucinatory gas or insects, in the swamp. Some of the men got separated- turned around. Fortunately, we mostly managed to stumble out at approximately the same place and regrouped-" The General nods, and Jee reflects that this is probably the one man he'd be able to say _I think I saw the spirit of my dear departed grandfather and he almost nagged my ear off_ to and not get slapped down for drunk-on-duty and like hell is he going to say it anyway.

"Unfortunately, we- did not find the swamp-witch before the, ah, visions started-"

"That situation has resolved itself," General Iroh smiles, and Jee can detect both strain and relief on his face.

"Then, the princess-?"

"Is being attended to. It will be some time before anything dramatic happens, so-" and he's cut off by the muffled echo of an outraged shriek, distorted by metal hallways. Both men cringe, and the General looks over his shoulder with a grimace.

"Errr- let's get the men sorted out, and then we can go and check on things."

…

It is later. Pain is happening.

Zura is on her knees, and heat goes through her in _waves_. Mama Binh holds her hand and cools her brow, and listens to her growls and tears with the same gentle nods. It's getting close to- _something_- but all she knows is that she has to hold back for now, and that this is long and painful and boring when it's not hurting and oh she wishes it would go back to boring…

"Almost there, my girl- soon comes the hard work-"

"_I thought this _was_ the hard work!"_

At some point she stops sending him away when her uncle knocks at the door. The Dragon of the West steps into the room and kneels at his niece's side, gives her his hand to grip, and holds on. Binh raises a brow but doesn't comment, and simply works around him.

Lt. Jee shows up and Zura is beyond embarrassment and possibly out the other side- she commandeers him, and the two old men hold her up so she can push.

Iroh has seen blood, battles, and birth before. Those things, in and of themselves, do not scare him. He has seen and caused and narrowly escaped grievous harm and grotesque disruption to the human body.

He has seen his son crushed from the waist down, held up like a half-mounted scarecrow in the dirt of Ba Sing Se.

The hissing scream his niece bites back between her teeth is what cuts him to the quick, and he dares not show it.

Jee concentrates on how much he's enjoying not feeling his fingers, and studiously averts his eyes when the swamp-witch woman settles between the princess's knees, loose sleeves rolled to the elbows.

…

Some of the men are in their bunks, some are on the deck. A lot of them are waiting in the mess, and one of the ensigns reports that the lamps outside the door in question are still blazing and fading in distinctive rhythm, so no, no news yet.

Some of them, fathers, widowers- spirits, _everyone_ was shook up after that night they spent in the swamp- are looking at their tea and wishing desperately that it were time to break out the sake.

It's lasted the day 'round, and approaching a bad hour to be born in the Fire Nation. It's been said that the same thing happened when the princess herself was born, and if there's any amateur sages looking to predict doom, they're wisely keeping shut.

One of the men who just happened to be going past that way has his head in his hands. "-it's not the screams that are bad- means they're fighting-mad and objecting. It's when they get to sounding _broken_-"

His fellows shush him and pass him a flask- it's a bad night, and if there are any officers about, they look the other way.

…

Zura lets out the last half of a tautly-held breath as a moan, and immediately has to breathe deep again, _concentrating_ in a way that would have delighted her firebending tutors had they been able to instill it in her.

The midwife looks down with meditative focus, steady as a rock- Zura can't do anything but leave her to it. Something slips, gives- and she has to drag in another breath, preparing to do it all over again.

Up and down the scales, it _sings_ through her, and suddenly Binh's got something bloody and big in her hands, flips it over and gives it a smack. A splurt, a cough, and she hears indignant screaming that isn't coming from her.

She thought she couldn't feel anything below the ribs- and it is just all a wash of hurt in different notes, it's true, all blending together. Then the water-bender woman lays a little human-shaped bundle on her belly, leaving smears of red against white skin, warm and shaking and with grasping little fists.

Zura can't believe that's hers.

She unwraps a hand from someone's fingers, and reaches out to touch slimy, birth-draggled hair. Then the old woman scoops the baby up and brings it forward, pushing it right into the crook of her arm, and she's too raw-voiced to ask.

"Suckling closes the womb- best thing for now," Mama Binh dictates calmly, and proceeds with some arcane cleaning process that Zura isn't paying attention to right now.

There's a hungry mouth, and screwed-tight eyes, and she's not entirely sure the kid's paying attention right now either. Uncle is exclaiming, and Jee is curled around his hand with a look of nausea, and she brings up her arms to hold it close, keep it from slipping away.

"-a fine daughter, my niece-" and she looks down and so it is. So _she_ is.

This is her _daughter_.

For a moment she's blank- isn't she supposed to feel something? Either disgust or attachment, rejection or devotion?

The grip on her breast changes, and she knows the first person who tries to touch this child will die with her hands on them.

There's glowing from where Mama Binh is working, and Uncle is hovering and she's about ready to fall asleep in his arms. Jee looks to her, and she looks back, and she has to smile a little.

She might never have known this girl.

"Mine," she whispers, and strokes the sticky hair.

…

An hour before dawn, the General comes out to the mess, face in a beatific smile.

"A toast," he says, "to your new princess!"

The cheer shakes the ship.

…

…

That's not the end, of course.

The princess sleeps the sleep of the exhausted, and Mama Binh collects the afterbirth, physical evidence of mother and child's mingled spirits, and packs it away to bury someplace safe. She'll lay it with small offerings to thank those who guard the gateways, and right now she whispers thanks and shooing motions to those who gather around the girl, brought near by the closeness that gathers in the swamp.

She's a tough one, that girl, and good thing, too- just fifteen, already dragging destiny around behind her like a half-tamed ostrich-horse. Mama's seen people bent under the weight of what the world wants them to do, and thinks that there couldn't be a better match in this one- she's got her papa's wild dragon heart and her mama's sane dragon eyes, and the ghost of a boy with needles in his sleeves that pretends he's not interested but flicks little slivers at the sort of crawling nasties that like to gather when a body's laid low.

She passes a glowing hand over them both, from belly to the top of the head- no one ever said Mama wasn't thorough- and soothes what little hurts she can find. Nothing to be done about the brand- that's big, bad powerful stuff and already being reclaimed as flesh of her flesh, emblazoned with too many things to stir up. The just-born girlchild is mostly just new clay, lightly stamped with an imperial dragon but utterly malleable beyond the basic warm shape of her self.

Her mother wakes, opening her eyes without so much as a flutter.

"…s'it over?"

Mama Binh smiles.

"That part, yes."

"If you say the hard part's still coming…" the princess glowers, arms tightening as she looks down at the tiny, well-scrubbed infant's face, and decides that getting up right now isn't the greatest idea.

"Would you rather I lied to you?" the old woman says, her easy smile still buoyant and kind. "You done a good job- now congratulations, you get another. Isn't that how it works among soldiers?"

The princess takes a deep, slow breath, adjusts her hold, and leans her head back on the pallet.

"Yeah."

…

By the time the ship leaves harbor, Zura is up and walking, and her daughter has a name. It comes about half by committee, half by chance- Zura likes parts of the meaning, Iroh likes the sound. Either way, she is beautiful, or will be, unfolding like a flower; and Zura hopes she will also be sharp and clever, like the boy she wants for her father.

Lan Min has had no great ceremonies or had her name trumpeted from the ramparts. Provinces will not send tribute to celebrate her birth. But Zura swears- she _swears_- that she will see her home again, and stand un-shadowed before her people.


	8. Agni Kai

The prompt- Zura and Zhao's interactions- explosions aplenty^^

…

"Uncle," she said, stepping down onto the deserted shore. "I want the repairs made as quickly as possible- I don't want to risk losing his trail."

"You mean, the Avata-"

"_Don't_ mention his name on these docks!" she hissed, hefting the toddler in her arms. "Once word gets out that he's alive every man in the navy will be out looking for him- and I _don't_ want anyone getting in the way-!"

"-Getting in the way of- what, Princess Zura…?" came the detestable purr. Zura winced and turned around carefully, leveling a composed glance at the approaching officer.

"Captain Zhao," she said coldly, arms crossed purposefully under her daughter's sling.

"It's _Commander_, now," he said, with a greasy smirk. "And General Iroh; great hero of our nation." Zhao bowed, and glanced at the curious toddler in her arms with a somehow even greasier look. "And, ah…"

"_Princess_ Lan Min," Zura bit out as delicately as she could.

"Yes, your little- stowaway," he said, and Uncle hastened to return the bow that she did not, inasmuch to distract her from killing the man right there as to make up for her bad manners. "The Fire Lord's brother, daughter and grandchild are welcome guests anytime- what brings you to my harbor?"

"Our ship is being repaired," Iroh said genially, and Zura took a tiny bit of satisfaction in the startled look on Zhao's face. Half an iceberg had fallen on the prow, and she knew very well that the whole thing looked like someone's paper-sculpture project for school, that had been dropped and trampled by child giants on the way to class.

"That's- quite a bit of damage…"

"Yes- you wouldn't believe what happened," Zura flatlined. Uncle Iroh glanced at her, but held his piece.

"Oh?" the harbor commander drawled, and Zura looked down at Lan Min, busying herself with tracing a lock of her daughter's hair, tucking it back behind a tiny ear before allowing her hand to be captured by small, grabby fingers.

"Sea monsters. Terrible sea monsters, that wanted to eat us up," she cooed at the end, getting a giggle out of her daughter and earning the further disgust of the sideburned man looming over them. Uncle hid a smile behind his sleeve, and she could just see the start of a vein in Zhao's forehead that, with further tweaking, could be made to stand out just like a firehose.

"That's- fascinating. You'll have to regale me with all the _thrilling_ details," he oozed, recovering, and suddenly he was looming into her face. Lan Min made a startled sound and grabbed for one of the shiny decals on his chest.

"Join me for a drink?"

"Sorry- I don't drink with strange men," Zura retorted quietly, hefting the sling and reaching out to untangle Zhao's cloak from her daughter's small, sticky fingers. "Look what happened the last time."

"Princess Zura- show Commander Zhao your respect," her uncle admonished, a light sting in his tone. "We would be honored to join you."

"Very well- please, follow me," Zhao offered, so polite as to make the teeth ache, and led the way into the makeshift settlement of the harbor.

…

There was small talk and the usual preliminary rituals- junior officers arranged the tent's furniture and brought tea, offered a comfortable chair for the princess to settle into with her child in her lap. Zhao, being the same blowhard she'd figured him for a couple of years ago, saw fit to give her an accounting of how the war fared, since of course she was no longer privy to the majority of military information, and had to rely on news and her own travels and hardships to get a picture of the state of the world. She was busy breaking a cookie in half with Lan Min when his interest took a sudden turn.

"And how goes your search for the Avatar?"

There was a stumbling crash, and Uncle apologized profusely as Zura turned a glare on the commander.

"We haven't found him yet."

"Did you really expect to?" Zhao growled in dismissal. "The Avatar _died_ a hundred years ago, along with the rest of the Airbenders." She closed her eyes and set her mouth, taking the words like a blow.

"Unless- you've found some _evidence_…" and that was why she hated him so- he sounded like her eel-voiced brother, always picking, prodding, throwing out hooks until something stuck and tore. Zura looked down at her child in her arms, the reason she strove so hard.

"No. Nothing."

"Princess Zura," Zhao said, rising from his chair and menacing like an angry teacher. "The Avatar is the only one who can keep the Fire Nation from winning this war- if you have an _ounce_ of loyalty left in you-" and here she bristled, arms tightening and high color coming to her face.

"I haven't found _anything_," she snarled, and Lan Min tugged on her collar, pulling her back and forcing her to swallow the rage. She took a breath, held it- let it go. "If I had- _we_ would be home by now. It's like you said. The Avatar probably died a long time ago- and I did not come here to have my loyalty questioned. Uncle- we are _leaving._" She rose with her daughter, who reached back for the cookie plate with a small whine of longing.

She didn't know why she was surprised when the guards barred her path.

"Commander Zhao- we interrogated the crew as you instructed. It took a while, but one confirmed that the princess had the Avatar in custody, and allowed him to escape."

Zura smoldered as Zhao leaned over her shoulder, coming _far_ too close into her personal space. "Remind me again…" that smile was shark-like, "-how your ship was damaged."

…

She sat like a stone while the story was recounted for the commander; Lan Min fidgeted in her arms, and Uncle just sat there, watching the proceedings with tea in hand. Zhao ordered that they be kept there- she fisted her hands in the material of the sling, trying to keep them from shaking or smoking.

He dared.

Of course he dared.

"I underestimated him once, but it won't happen again-"

"No it will not- because you won't get a second chance. This is _far_ too important to leave in a teenager's hands- much less one toting a _child_ around."

"I've been hunting the Avatar for two years!" she protested, springing to her feet.

"And you've failed!" Zhao roared in return. "And little wonder," he continued, looking at her with clear disdain.

"This is my only chance, _her_ only chance!" The guards were starting to close in around her, and she stood with her daughter in her arms, eyes wide with outrage. The lamps around the tent blazed, nearly setting fire to their shades- the guards stood their ground and blocked her way, but didn't close with her.

"Neither of you ever _had_ a chance- and in any case, he's _mine_ now," Zhao said, smirking. He turned and left, untouched, unhindered.

It was a terrible example to her daughter, but _so_ satisfying to kick that table into splinters.

…

He returned soon enough- Zura looked at him with absolute hate, the kind that made Lan Min quiet and clingy, dueling heart-fires with her so that she felt immense love and terrible, terrible anger at once.

"My search-party is prepared- after I'm out to sea, my guards will escort you to your ship and you'll be free to go."

"Are you afraid I'll find him first?" Zura said, voice a terrible quiet sound. Zhao ruined the ambience with careless laughter.

"You? You can't possibly compete with me- I have hundreds of warships under my command and you, you're just a banished princess- no home, no allies, ruined for the military _or_ the respectable marriage bed. Your own father doesn't want you _or_ your bastard brat dirtying up his bloodline."

"You're wrong," she snarled. "When I deliver the Avatar to my father, it will prove my worth, and hers-"

"If he'd ever had any intention of that, you'd have been brought home by now. The very fact that your child was allowed to live shows that he doesn't care to have you back."

"You _traitorous-_!"

"_Don't_ talk to me about loyalty, princess," Zhao smiled, gliding closer. "Your track record's pretty tattered. Loyalty to your country, when you speak out against our policies? Loyalty to your family, when you can't keep yourself out of trouble before being properly wedded? The Fire Lord could have allowed you to be cleansed and taken you back into the fold, Avatar or no- but in his eyes you are a failure and a disgrace."

"That's not _true,_ none of it's _true_-"

"You've got the scar to prove it," he said, darting in that one last little knife as the lamps started to cook.

"_MAYBE YOU'D LIKE ONE TO MATCH!!!"_

The old general moved to snatch the child from the princess's arms- she cried now, loud and upset, and the princess surged into Zhao's face.

He just smirked.

"Is that a challenge I hear?"

"You have insulted my loyalty, my family; impeded my duty; _distressed my child_. I _will_ have satisfaction from you," she hissed. "Agni kai, at sunset!"

"Very well. It's a shame your father can't be here to watch me humiliate you- I suppose your uncle and your daughter will do."

…

…

The sun sweeps red across the harbor, great Agni witnessing dispute between his fractious children as his dying act for the day. The gong rings out.

Zhao stands and turns, following the old ritual in correct form.

He watches the red cloth fall from her shoulders, pale and corded. She's leaner than he thought, the flare of hips highlighted by strong stomach muscles and a nip in at the waist. She's not soft.

Her breastband is snug and beginning to dampen.

He smiles.

"This will be over quickly."

Princess Zura's eyes are snake-like beneath that bizarre haircut, a mix of humble shame and fierce nobility, and she swirls fire through the air.

They take turns casting aside each other's blasts, advancing back and forth. He's old and smug and knows the common treacheries; she's young and hotheaded and _good_ for all she's too open and honest in her moves.

She realizes he's showing off, far more than would be appropriate unless this were in front of an audience, and begins to wonder if this is an actual duel or some sort of bizarre courtship ritual.

She has royal blood but is not currently in the succession and thus, out of reach. She has nothing of value to him, and must thus be needful of what he possesses. She's young. She's fertile. No one else in the world could possibly want her.

When next he leaps at her, she kicks his feet out from under him and drives him stumbling back. When she has him on the ground, she leaves him unmarred but for his pride. The ground smolders around her feet, very near to what is very precious to him.

"_Don't get in my way again_."


	9. The Ferry

The prompt- Jet, and how he treats Zura and Lan Min on the ferry to Ba Sing Se.

…

He catches sight of her at the railing, and she confuses the hell out of him. Middling build, strong but not bulky- she's about at the range where he could take her for a boy or a girl, even though she's not skinny. It's the beat-up peasant clothes, he thinks- and the hair. It's all been sheared off, closer than a koala-sheep's, and she stands like a soldier, an _angry_ one. The swords across her back are weird too- he hasn't seen much of civil society in his life, but he _does_ know that girls in the world are generally expected not to show fangs like guard-dogs.

Then there's the two-year-old she's carrying in her arms. Pretty little thing, black hair done up in little buns, clothes crude but colorful. She's squinting and turning away, pushing back a bowl her keeper is trying to feed her from.

Jet sees the scar.

He sees coal-black hair and moon-white baby skin, and a girl who's maybe a year or two older than him. Rage _churns_ in his gut- and pity in the rest of him.

The girl turns, growls, and her old man sighs, and she slams the bowl onto the railing.

"I can't feed this to her- and I'm sick of eating rotten food! Sleeping in the dirt! I'm tired of _living_ like this!"

"Aren't we all."

......

She turns a glaring, suspicious eye- _she can barely open that one_- on him, and he tones down the smile, plays it cool. This one's already seen charm, and been cut by the shards when it breaks down.

"Here's the deal- I hear the captain's eating like a king while us refugees have to live off his scraps. Doesn't seem fair does it- especially to the little lady there…"

It goes pretty quick from there- she bundles the kid into the old man's arms and demands in on the food-raid. They spend about an hour casing the place, planning- Smellerbee gives him a funny look and Longshot doesn't have to say a thing, but Their Fearless Leader is on the move and better to see what happens than get in the way.

The sun sets just enough and the raid goes off without a hitch- Li moves like a shadow, works those blades like they're an extra set of hands, and just like that, they've got a feast to spread among the hungry. The branded girl even takes a few touches of civilization with the neatly packaged bowls- now there's _style._

The Freedom Fighters settle in to eat with Li and old man Mushi, and the little girl who squeals in delight when Li mashes noodles for her, and babbles happy nonsense that occasionally has a real word or two thrown in for kicks.

Jet is pulling back hard on everything he wants to say, that rushes to vomit forth from his churning stomach, and tries to enjoy dinner. Rest and food, two things you snatch whenever you can.

"From what I heard, people eat like this every night in Ba Sing Se- I can't wait to set my eyes on that giant wall." The fresh start he's been looking for- part of that is knowing that the enemy was firmly on one side, knowing where it was coming from- and that those there were the _enemy_.

Because he's scared shitless that he can't tell anymore.

There's talk of second chances and changing lives, and Li and Mushi have such a Significant Glance that Jet _itches_ to know the damn secrets he knows a person, a _girl_'s entitled to. The kid takes the opportunity to toddle over and try to put her hands all over his shiny pointy weapons-hilts and he pulls them back, pushing her back to her mother as delicately as he can. She's warm, very warm, but without fever-spots or the crankiness he knows happens when little kids get sick.

He feels a little sick himself, and excuses himself for the night. Longshot and Smellerbee look after him, worry plain on their faces.

….

Before dawn, he finds her again- she's stolen away to find some privacy to nurse, and he hears her humming before he sees her. It's low and a little broken, and he catches a word or two here and there. Something about- a hymn to the sun, the light of life; and pity the barque, the wild waves part, my love is far, far away.

She's enough like him that he deliberately makes some noise on the approach- even so he still ends up on the wrong end of a sword, hands up, straw held safely to one corner of his mouth.

"You're risking a lot for a little peek," she hisses, and that kid is unflappable, sucking away as if this has happened a hundred times before _and it probably has_.

"As soon as I saw your scar, I knew who you were." And her eyes widen and the pupils narrow and he thinks he'd rather face wild cobra-dogs than get between her and something she thinks is hers.

That sword is _sharp_.

"You don't know _anything_."

"I said I did some things I'm not proud of- think I could just pass judgment on a fellow outcas-" the blood _trickles_ down to the hollow of his throat and he can feel it stain the edge of his shirt. "-ast."

"I don't care who you are or what the hell you want. A lot of people see the hair and think I'm easy-"

"How could they, with that on your face?" Jet says, risking another little nick as he points his chin. That's not the answer she was expecting- he presses ahead, while she's got the grip relaxed.

"Us outcasts have to stick together- watch each others' backs. Because no one else will." He looks at the kid, who's finishing up, and she catches the movement.

"And would you look out for her?" she bites off, switching her sword-hand to guard as she refastens her robe. "Since you seem to know everything."

"Do _you_ know why you're protecting her?" And he wants to know so bad, too, almost more than he wants her, than her blades under his command. He moves carefully, swiping the blood off his neck with his sleeve.

"Because she's _mine_," Li snarls, and keeps that bitter dragon-mask on even as her daughter calls her mama and wriggles in her too-tight hold. "She's the one spirits-damned good thing that I can call my own and _yes she came from the Fire Nation_. My sun-child. And the first one who says a damn _thing_ about it is going to get an Earth Kingdom knife in the spirits-damned _gullet_."

She buttons up completely and stalks off, the sun peeking over the water and coloring her cheeks a high red as it burns through the mist. About halfway down the deck, the kid demands down, and she holds her hand for a brief walk. Jet stares after her, heart in his throat, sick to his stomach, hard as a rock.

He thinks if she weren't so bitchy, so brazen about it, he wouldn't be able to stand it. She wears her scars and her bastardry and wraps them around her like a cloak, daring anyone to make a comment on the cut. Taking a piece of your enemy and making it your own- he thinks he can understand that.

One thing he knows, dusting himself off and going to seek Smellerbee and Longshot before they figure he's tumbled off the gangplank- this isn't over yet.

He's going to see Li again.


	10. Prelude to Siege

The prompt- where was Lan Min during the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe? Part 1.

…

The boy kneels in the darkness, head bowed before the flames that dance in time to their lord's whim.

"Your uncle Iroh is a traitor, and your sister Zura is a failure."

No surprise there.

"I have a task for you."

The boy looks up into the shadowed face of his father, and smiles.

…

How did it come to this?

Ah yes.

…

It was a fine night, with a waning moon for light and a mellow song keeping the time; Iroh sang happily as Jee played, and the cook and scullion waltzed by. The princess had just gone below to tend her daughter, and it was looking like Music Night would be a rousing success once again.

As many people, including sages, civilians, and one particularly picked-on clerk knew, Commander Zhao had a talent for walking into such moments and sucking them dry.

…

"Zura?"

"What, Uncle?" the elder princess called, not looking up from where the battle to corral and change the younger was fast becoming a draw.

"It's about our plans- there is a bit of a problem." The sound of a heavy footstep onto _her_ floor is what raised her head, turning just as much as keeping Lan Min pinned in place would allow.

"Get off my ship."

"I'm taking your crew." They harmonized on that last bit, and Zura gave him a sneer that a generous person might blame on the task she was trying to complete.

"I've recruited them for a little expedition to the North Pole."

"You're- you can't do that! Uncle, can he do that?" she said as she turned to the old general, scandalized.

"He _is_ the ranking officer in the area, Zura," Iroh responded, thoughtful. "It is not like the old days, after all, when an Agni Kai brought the winner all that the defeated had, power and possessions both."

Zhao's face darkened, but he held it back and squared his shoulders. "Regardless- I have both the right and the duty to commandeer your men. We have- _work_ to do," he said, glancing studiously away from the changing table. "I'm sorry you won't be there to watch me capture the Avatar- but the battlefield is no place for a child or its tender. You understand."

The pin Zura held was very carefully laid aside with a small _click_. Lan Min made an annoyed sound and wriggled, wanting to be off the table and running about again.

"Uncle- please _remove_ this man from my room. I'm _busy_."

But whether Iroh would have been successful or not would remain a mystery- before he could address the commander, Zhao had stepped across to one of the wall displays, a crossed set of swords.

"I didn't know you were skilled with broadswords, Princess." He took one down, tested the heft and the slice it made through the air.

"I'm not- those are antiques. They belonged to my mother," Zura said quietly, and wondered immediately if it was a mistake. No one spoke of her mother- and even if they did, the princess Ursa had been infamously skilled with them. She thought there was a hard glitter in Zhao's eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Have you heard of the Blue Spirit, Princess?"

"Oh, for the love of misshapen spirits! I'm in the middle of changing a damn _diaper_, Commander! I don't know _what_ school teaches officers their manners as they climb the ranks these days, but they are clearly _remiss._ Get out of my room, get off of my ship, go away and get back to whatever the hell you were doing! Invading a woman's bedroom, rifling through her things, stealing her escort, waving a _sword_ around in a room with a _child_- even a contracted _whore_ can expect better manners from a gentleman!"

In the aftermath of the outburst, the princess turned her back on the two men, making soothing shushing noises to the toddler who had begun to whimper. Zhao glowered down from a height, turning towards the door as Iroh took the sword from him.

"I can see you have some- hysteria to work out. General Iroh, the offer to join my mission still stands- if you change your mind."

"I am going to kill him," Zura snarled at the shut door. Uncle moved to take over for her, but she very slowly, carefully took up the pin she'd dropped and finished the job, glaring down at the table like it had personally offended her.

Lan Min rode in her arms but fussed uneasily as she moved up on deck- her daughter knew the sort of shaking in the hands that held her and didn't like it. Still, she witnessed the grudging, but efficient, exodus of her crew with a face like stone, nodding just a little with each 'Goodbye, Princess,'.

Jee stopped by last, and she snapped out of her stony reverie long enough to really look at him, and acknowledge his salute. He rubbed his hand after, the fingers she'd broken when her daughter had been born, and she reached out to take them in hers, warming the joints in a small, final squeeze. He didn't smile, just nodded grimly and turned on his heel, bag over his shoulder.

And just like that, the men who had been her most loyal crew for three years were gone.

She looked at her uncle, and firmly planted Lan Min into Iroh's arms.

"Take her for a walk- I can't be around anyone right now." Her daughter saw enough temper tantrums- and this was the sort of black rage even _she_ had rarely seen in her youth.

Iroh looked like he was about to say something, then just nodded. "I understand- some things we may not wish to share with our children until they can know it is not directed at them."

He took his grand-niece in hand and walked down the gangplank, intent on keeping both his girls as happy as could be- and if that meant giving Zura some time alone to scream and destroy things, very well.

Half-way to town, he heard the explosion- _not_ the one he was expecting. Horror tearing at him, he raced back, Lan Min clutched tight.

"_Zura!_"

…

The fleet set sail.

If anyone thought it was odd that Zhao had a grieving, retired general as guest, they kept mum. The child he ferried about, though, was a source of shaking heads and raised brows.

"Can't you shut that thing up? Get it off my bridge!" This was not the first time Zhao had expressed disapproval in the presence of the crying girl, but it was the first time he had exploded so openly. The journey to the north was taking weeks, and the whelp's whining grated.

"Commander- I have just lost my niece, and this child had just lost her mother. If you wish my assistance and my presence to enhance your endeavors, perhaps you could show a little more patience. Nevertheless-" the old general said tiredly, stroking the little girl's black pigtails as she turned her face against his breastplate, sniffling wetly. "The war-room is not the place to be now. I shall return after I have seen my grand-niece settled."

Zhao watched with narrowed eyes as the old man shuffled off, and after the door was shut rubbed his throbbing temples.

…

In a deserted stretch of ship, two soldiers crossed paths and paused.

"Our plan is working. Zhao doesn't suspect a thing."

"Where's Lan Min?" The faceplate rattled as she pulled it out of place, just enough to get a better look at her uncle as she asked.

"The cook got traded off to one of the other ships, but the scullion's ours- he'll be bringing broth to feed her, and no one wants to bother with him then. You'll have about an hour after supper, if you don't mind being stuck in a supply closet."

"Are there enough of ours to keep watch?"

"Possibly," Iroh hazarded. "The crew were mostly kept here in order to keep an eye on them- if someone's off-duty, he could come to chat with old comrades so long as it isn't about anything suspicious."

That would have to do. She sighed, and nodded. "Thank you, Uncle."

"No niece of mine is going to stowaway without some backup- we have to be careful, but if we don't get sloppy, you can make it to the North Pole and the Avatar will be yours."

"Someone's coming." The faceplate clicked back into place, and just another Imperial firebender strode down the hall.


	11. Aftermath

The Prompt: Where is Lan Min during the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe? Part two.

…

Zhao is getting away.

The Avatar's too strong, with his friends and her uncle at his side and busy tending the fish, but like hell is she going to let Zhao get away with everything he's done. He's slick, but she's fast- and she's younger, and angrier, and he didn't _just_ try to kill _her_.

What if she hadn't sent her daughter off with Uncle for that walk?

The Ocean Spirit flows outward to the ocean and proceeds to play kick-the-floating-can with the warships. Zura has her own concerns.

"You tried to have me _killed_!"

He doesn't bother to deny it.

The blasts are sharp, vicious, and come in a fast barrage. They fight their way through the shattered city, ending up on a bridge when the moon relights. Then the Ocean _itself_ reaches up and tears Zhao out of her reach, and she can't leave him to _that_, to the endless cold and deep especially when she wants to break and burn him, _bring him to justice_ herself. But she cannot save him- he refuses her grip himself.

After that it's a matter of finding Uncle and making their way back over the cliffs, without a snowstorm blinding them to the stars and the path.

…

The fleet is gone.

Zura is standing by the boat she managed to hide and staring at blank, open water.

Her uncle is by her side, and she's on her knees, holding her mouth to not scream. The Ocean spirit. The Avatar. The waves the fleet the ships the crewherdaughterher_baby_-

"There-!" Uncle is saying, shaking her shoulder and pointing. "Far out to the west- you can see the light off the hulls-"

Zura is already scrambling to get the boat ready- it's too small, and they end up losing even more time while cobbling together a raft that can hold their weight and be directed, and if they're lucky, go faster than just what her arms' strength can gain them.

The Water-tribe is busy within the walls, and if there were any bodies to mop up, they've been plunged to the bottom of the sea. They make it out and start skimming along the waves, Uncle guiding the sails with Zura's muscle to make up for his.

The fleet is more than a day's travel away already, if those are even living boats and not broken hulks where the Avatar tossed them, and they have neither fresh water nor food.

…

The fleet is broken.

Well, that's not strictly accurate- they lost several ships with all hands, their commander and most of his officers have been lost, and every vessel is limping along. Even those that weren't bent or broken, sheared against each other or viciously sliced along the waterline, have had to dry out the engines before they could move on.

Some limp along slower than others. The former flagship, oddly enough, is stringing along almost dead last, despite having been the first to turn tail and retreat, before the enormous strength of an angry god had begun flinging them skidding along the waves to land a day's travel away. No matter- it was only full of the most basic of officers and soldiers, everyone of higher rank had been unfortunately lost. If there was mutiny, they're at least falling into line for the moment- there's simply no time to deal with it right now.

With their spyglasses focused forward, praying for land, port and dry-dock to appear on the horizon, no one really pays attention to the broken flagship and its ragged skeleton crew.

Or the faint light that sometimes appears behind them, a flicker on the waves in a feeble, steady pattern.

The battered vessel limps further behind.

It had taken five weeks for the fleet to make it to the North Pole. A week and a half after they leave it, a rope is lowered over the side of that last draggling ship in the night and two castaways are pulled aboard.

The old man is tired and salt-soaked. The girl cries when the soldiers gather around her- they slap her back and bring her food and present her daughter to her, clean and whole and cranky from being woken from her uneasy nap. The crying doesn't stop then, but it's clearer and cleaner than before, and goes on through the night until they're all asleep, exhausted and well-fed.

A message flashes out to the rest of the fleet- 'we've taken too much damage and are abandoning ship.' There's land nearby, but not a harbor equipped for the sort of repairs an Imperial class flagship needs.

The rest of the fleet moves on.

And the tattered remnants of a loyal crew disperses into a town choked with cherry-blossoms.


	12. Journey to the Boiling Rock

The conversation in the war balloon on the way to the Boiling Rock takes a turn for the odd…

…

"I know, I know, you've changed-"

"I meant my uncle." Zura looked into the miniature furnace of the war balloon, pensive. "He was more of a father to me- and I really let him down."

"I think your uncle would be proud of you. Leaving your home to come help us? That's hard."

"Not that hard."

"Really? You didn't leave behind anyone you cared about? I mean, you got your kid out, yeah, but-"

"Well- I do have a boyfriend. Mao."

"That gloomy guy with the knives that looks like a porcelain doll?"

"Yeah…" She frowned, turning back to the furnace again. "Everyone in the Fire Nation thinks I'm a traitor- and they were already looking at him for being complicit with me. I couldn't drag him further into that."

"…My first girlfriend turned into the moon."

"…that's rough, buddy."

There was quiet for a while. Then-

"Hey, did he know about the thing with the veils and the-"

"That didn't happen."

"But I swear, you tried to-"

"That _didn't. Happen!_"

…

"You _have_ to let us in! These are dangerous fugitives- I _must_ capture them!"

"I ain't lettin' any men into the back of _my_ house 'less they've paid," the old proprietress said, giving them all a fishy eye as the mole at the corner of her mouth drooped. "Much less rough-looking types who'll scare my performers out of their wits as they hang about."

Zura glanced around at her squadron, loyal, tested soldiers and firebenders who'd followed her thus far. The latest intelligence had that Water-Tribe idiot located around _here_- and with one bird in hand, she could lure out the others. She was so close- she didn't _dare_ lose the trail now.

"What about," she finally gulped. "-me?"

…

Sokka was trying to keep his head down and his wits about him- but come on. He was in a high fancy house of the sort young men went to in order to _lose_ their wits, and their money, and if they were very lucky sometimes their clothes. He, Aang and Katara had each taken some of that nice haul and chosen their own mini-vacations- this was the perfect town, quiet, big enough not to stand out but small enough not to get lost in, no occupation, just trade- and _his_ mini-vacation was a miniature tour of the world, in the form of very pretty young ladies who the announcer professed to be from such exotic places as the Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, distant parts of the Earth Kingdoms and various mythic legends.

He had to admit that the moon-mermaid one had made him choke up a bit.

But now it was getting to be time for the next act, and the whistling and stomping on the furniture was dying down to a quieter anticipation.

The music hummed.

The lights dropped.

And red blossomed out of the midst of the dark stage.

The girl was draped in ragged-edged veils, layers of red and brown and gold tracery falling like autumn leaves around her hips and armbands. Her face and crown were hidden behind red scarves, held in place by gold chains. A long, braided coil of black hair stood out amidst the trailing folds, swaying like the cord of a curtain after it's been shut. The stage lights looked chilly and remote, stars far out in the blackness on a cold night.

She just stood there.

Then someone's drumstick _clack_ed on a block, and the girl flowed into a stance. _Clack_. Another. _Clack_. Another. _Thump_. Another, and this time a low, thin flute joined in.

There wasn't nearly as much hip or snakey-ness in it as there had been with the other girls. It was like watching a fight in slow motion, flowing kicks and strikes turning around and around until they sped up, leaves whirling, catching, turning into a bonfire…

Damn- he _had_ to hand it to that lighting crew.

And then one of the extraneous red scarves around her arms, the ones covering up asymmetric paint on her limbs that matched the leaf-mask around her eyes, landed around his neck.

"Guh…?"

And just like that, it was over, and the stage was empty and the men around him were howling and he was left there holding the filmy sundry with eyes wide and dumbfounded.

Someone tapped him on his shoulder and he whirled with his hands up in defense.

"Whoa, I swear, she threw it at me-!"

"I know," said the guy, who was perhaps three times his size and bald as an egg. "The lady'd like ta see ya."

The teenaged boy gulped.

"-huh…?" _think fast, think fast you should know what to dothinkfast-!_

"Just accept that good things is comin' to ya, kid? It makes my job a hell of a lot easier," the big man sighed, and gently shepherded the Water Tribe rube off to meet his destiny.

_Country_ kids.

…

Sokka had never seen this much frippery in his life.

Seriously, it was hard to tell what walls were costumes and what was just decorative and whether this or that collection of beaded strings was somebody's abandoned outfit or standing in lieu of a door. The feathers _alone_ could have filled mattresses, if you didn't mind them being very tawdry ones.

In a funny way, it was a little like a properly lived-in house in the South Pole, only instead of furs and leathers, you had spangles and jewelry hanging about the place. A nest insulated against the outside world, filled with the tools and treasures and illusory privacy of a close-knit life…

He saw the girl's silhouette move into a veiled doorway- if he ran now, would it be rude? Should he have done it back when the enormous guy had been guiding him, or ducked out of the way of the scarf in the first place?

"Uh- hi. My name's Sokka- Southern Water Tribe- how ya doing?"

The girl didn't say anything, just moved with strong, careful steps over pillows and cushions, hands curled around a tray that held a substantial-looking liquor bottle of jewel-cut glass and two very small cups. Her veils hadn't been disturbed since he'd first seen her, and she kept her eyes lowered.

"I, ah, you see, that is I'm from the Water Tribe and we kind of have a thing about the draping around the neck thing you see it's sort of supposed to be the boy that does that to the girl and he's supposed to take some time and be careful about it and she can try him out sure but he-"

Strong, beautiful hands grabbed him and cut off his babble by pulling him into a silencing kiss, skin to silk, and he went with it after a moment and let it go on (just testing, mind) for a good long while before he opened his eyes and began to wonder, _hey, that leaf-mask's not all paint-_

Stars exploded in his head to the tune of _CRACK_, and the smell of liquor echoed the breaking of glass.

…

Zura stood up swiftly as the boy's hands tumbled down with the rest of him.

"Great," she muttered, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed the noise, and stepped carefully aside, not trusting the delicate dancing-slippers to stand up to a lot of broken shards. Moving swiftly, she stripped off veils and skirts and jingly things and started tying joints, knowing that she had to get him outside to her guards before anything could go wrong-

At which point the actual star of the show, beginning to age and bitter with it though she might be, discovered that someone had found her private stash and leapt upon the nearest culprit.

That would be the one who'd pilfered it for a makeshift weapon.

Zura dropped the prostrate boy as she was hit by eighty pounds of angry acrobat, grappling for her life (and what little remained of her hair) while shouting for her guards to get the hell _in_ here already-!

Clothing tore, beads popped and scattered and knees and nails flashed as the two women tumbled about the room-

…

"It didn't happen that way!"

"Who's telling this story?"

"_Not you!_"

…

Sokka woke with an aching head, smelling like a brewery and tied up in an alley behind a highly suspicious type of theater. It wasn't Katara that found him, thank the spirits, but he felt bad enough without adding a killer lecture on top.

Besides, he'd just had the _craziest_ dream about the evil battle-princess that kept chasing them trying to seduce him...

…

"Hey, I had very fond memories of that trip before you knocked 'em out of my head!"

"You want 'em knocked overboard?"

"…just fly the balloon, woman."

_thump_

"Hey, I need that arm!"


	13. Tales of Ba Sing Se: Part One

In which Jet stalks our favorite firebenders… part one.

…

_Dear Lim- Recently I had an experience that I just _had_ to tell you about..._

Supervisor Lim of the Dai Li muttered as he read the report from Haung-fucking-I'm-so-good-at-kissing-ass-I-can-get-away-with-these-sloppy-reports-Kun. This one had better be good, to be worth the stomach-soothing tea he'd go through trying to translate it all that entertaining prose into useful information.

_It started about the time the latest batch of refugees were processed and let into the lower east quarter..._

…

The station was crowded, the wait was long, and Lan Min was getting bored and fussy. Zura was feeling, loathe as she was to admit it, very similarly- _and_ she was already sick of finger-counting games.

At least no one was chasing her.

"So, you got plans once you're inside the city?"

Too soon.

It was that boy again- Jet and the Freedom Fighters, and if that wasn't a recipe for disaster Zura didn't know what was. She glanced at her uncle, who was busy ordering tea from a passing cart, then at her scowling daughter, and back to Jet.

"Find a house, find a job, raise my kid. Not run around getting into trouble with boys."

"Eyuch, _coldest_ tea in Ba Sing Se! What a disgrace…" filled the background, and the wild-haired boy smiled.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" In one ear and out the other…

"Uncle- watch Lin for me, please," she muttered, distracting the older man from his unhappy facemaking over the inferior drink. With that settled, she walked off the few lengths needed to go beyond earshot with a sigh.

"What?" she said, arms crossed.

"Look, I know you've got- priorities," Jet said, earnest as you please. "But you and I have a much better chance of making it in the city if we stick together." He paused, and looked her in the eye with a smile. "You wanna join the Freedom Fighters?"

She gave him a look that could have soured milk.

"What part of 'kid to raise' don't you understand?"

"I know, I know- nothing too dangerous or staying out all night- but we made a great team looting that captain's food. Think of all the good we could do for these refugees. _And-_" he continued when she opened her mouth to rebut- "That way you're in on whatever help we deliver. We watch each other's backs."

"…thanks. But I really don't think you want me in your gang." _And I'm not so sure I want your protection._

"You sure?"

"Yes." She turned to go, and twitched to see her uncle, still holding Lan Min (who had perked up some), and sipping from a now-steaming cup. Stalking over as discretely as she could, she slapped away the offending drink.

"What are you doing firebending your tea?" she hissed over his protests, and glanced back at where the boy had last been.

He was still there, and staring at them with a look that said he was _this_ close to- something. Breaking or running or possibly hyperventilating, or remembering something he was trying to forget. Her daughter reached out to the cup on the floor with a whine, and Zura hauled her over and settled her on her lap, staring back.

_Say one word, I dare you._

His eyes flicked between them- she would swear it lingered over the left side of her face- and then he seemed to swallow and gave her a curt nod, before turning on his heel and walking away.

…

The kid is a firebender.

And Jet doesn't want to think about it.

"You okay?" Smellerbee flanks him from the right.

"I'm fine- let's go." He's not fine. He's _so_ not fine. This was supposed to be a fresh start, a clean break- and here he is trying not to lose it in front of a crowd of innocent refugees.

Li is a refugee. Li is a swordswoman the likes of which he's never seen. Li is a girl who's been hurt and scarred and refused to let go of her mouthful of flesh- she's suffered plenty at the hands of the Fire Nation. And she's got a little piece of it wandering around with her, with grabby little-girl hands and hair up in buns.

She's already said that the first person who makes a move on the kid, dies. And it stops him cold, because was he actually _thinking_ about it?

The town- the town had been full of kids, and moms, and Fire Nation sons and soldiers and those that made them possible, and he'd been so _sick_ of them squatting there, acting like the world was alright with them. The only thing to do had been to make them leave- and they didn't. And then there was the dam, and one swift way to make sure that the valley was no longer under Fire Nation rule.

He knows it's wrong in his head- kind of- but it doesn't _feel_ wrong even now, even though he knows it didn't work, wouldn't have worked (wouldn't have worked _how_?), and he's not sure which is right. One thing's for sure, though- Li's staked her claim and she's not going to be charmed, conned, bought or bullied out of it. She's got a little firebrand to watch on her hands, and that's got to be difficult.

She'll need their help. It's the least he can offer.

…


	14. Refuge

The Avatar State, or, a homecoming averted.

…

It was the anniversary. She'd known it was coming for some time, but only after reaching the spa-town's shore had Zura been able to find a calendar that confirmed it.

Three years ago today, she had been banished from the Fire Nation- becoming a princess without a crown, a traveler without a country, and no place she could call her own. She had lost her honor, her reputation, and her inheritance in one fell swoop, and she wanted it back with a burning vengeance verging on ashen despair.

Her daughter had wanted to go to the beach, though, and so she'd put that aside in order to watch her splash happily in the surf, pulling her back when she strayed too far.

…

Zura was patting Lan Min dry with a towel as she stepped into the shady beach house, trying not to smile through her grimace.

"How you managed to get sand _there_ I'll never know…"

"San'!" Lan Min agreed, and waved the shell Uncle had let her pick out. The rest of them were being poured out onto the table by the man himself, delighting Zura's wriggly daughter with the noise and clatter.

"Look at these magnificent shells! We'll enjoy these keepsakes for years to come!"

The princess glanced over at the spread of beach effluvia, and had to smile. "Maybe one or two- we don't know if we're going to have anyplace to put them."

They were adrift in a tiny town with no boat, no money and no one to call on, but at least they weren't adrift in the middle of the ocean. Most of the men who'd served with her were alive and having a good time on the town. The sun was shining, the cherry trees were fluttering with blossoms, and she hadn't felt this good in a long time.

"Hello, _sister_. _Uncle_."

And like a leaf in the storm, the good times were gone.

"What are you doing here?"

"In _my_ country, we exchange a pleasant 'hello' before asking _questions_." The boy rose out of his chair and stepped into the light of the window, smiling. Azulon had grown some since she'd seen him last, gaining muscle and form. He was still distressingly petite, though, and Zura knew it had to bother him to take after Uncle rather than Father.

"Have you become uncivilized so soon, Zu-Za?"

"Don't call me that," she snapped automatically, shifting Lan Min on her hip. Azulon picked up on the movement, tilting his head as he stepped closer.

"And is this my- nephew?"

"Niece."

"Niece," he repeated, seeming to turn the word over in his head, and smiled beatifically, bringing his hands from behind his back. "I have a gift for my- niece, although now it seems hardly appropriate-" He had a soft, stuffed doll, a high-quality piece, shaped like a komodo rhino in full parade cavalry gear.

"Do you think she'd like it anyway?"

Judging by the way Lan Min was eyeing the offered toy and starting to make grabby motions, she would indeed.

"To what do we owe this great honor?" Iroh said, reasserting his presence in the room. Zura glanced back at him, then to Azulon again, whose expression had not changed. The grip he had on the stuffed toy didn't change either, although she was certain if he were really in a pointed mood, there would be smoking holes where his fingertips had been.

"So quick to get to the point- well. I've come with a message from home," Azulon said, reaching up to fiddle with his hair. "Father has changed his mind- he wishes you home. Family is suddenly _very_ important to him."

"…what?"

"He's heard of plans to overthrow him- to end his line and destroy his family. There have even been attempts… as I'm sure you well know." Zura stared at her brother, trying to read him- Lan Min was starting to demand down, and so she knelt to set her on the floor, but still held on to her.

"Flung so far distant across the empire, we can be picked off, one by one. Together we are strong- untouchable. It's the only way to be safe," Azulon continued coolly, gazing down at his sister. A pause, and then-

"Father regrets your banishment- he wants you to return home. You, and his only grandchild," the prince said, leaning down and offering the stuffed rhino across the gap between them.

The toddler strained, and Zura finally let her go, to walk the few steps between herself and her brother. Azulon was smiling, and it looked- _happy_, not like he was about to eat someone's head. Lan Min was all over the rhino, and then ducked her head and looked up at the prince with shy adoration.

"…usually she doesn't like strangers," Zura said faintly.

"Well I'm hardly _that_, am I," Azulon retorted, picking up the girl without a word of protest from either. "-_oof_- hello there, Princess- an honor to make your acquaintance…"

Iroh set his hand on her shoulder, and she tried not to pounce.

Lan Min was settled into Azulon's arms as easily as she might be in Zura's, tugging on his sidelocks the way she did on her mother's ponytail.

"I still haven't heard my thank-you, by the way," Azulon said casually, still smiling as if this were the most natural thing in the world. "I'm not a messenger- I didn't have to come. But- there's time for that after I spoil this lovely girl…" he cooed.

_Am _I _this nauseating when I get like that?_

…

The word went out- the prince had come to collect his sister, and had made it sound very like a royal homecoming was in the offing. Sailors and soldiers out of uniform gathered in the different taverns of the town, muttering together over the news.

It looked like decision-time was about to come sooner rather than later.

No one off the royal vessel had been allowed shore-leave so far- that indicated a swift cast-off was expected, and Jee didn't like that he had no way to talk to those soldiers. If they were under orders not to say anything, of course that would indicate plenty on its own, but there was plenty to glean if only they were _here_.

The old general had come down to his particular watering-hole, and frowned as he nursed a drink across the table from him.

"You don't like it either, sir."

"No, I do not," the general agreed, setting his cup aside and grasping his chin in narrow thought. "Azulon claims to have been ordered to bring his sister home. I have no doubt that is his mandate- but I distrust the intent."

"What would you like us to do, sir?"

The silence lingered for a long moment after that.

"How long have you been in the navy, Lieutenant?"

"I'm a twenty-year man, sir," Jee responded, knowing about where this was probably headed.

"And what earned you this post, traveling with the princess?"

"I- managed to go around a particularly stupid set of orders rather than right through them." A most egregious crime indeed by some standards, Iroh understood. Just the sort of enterprise he needed.

"There is no evidence of- wrongdoing, in your fortunate retreat from the North," the general said carefully, renewing his cup and gesturing with it. "I do not know what will happen tomorrow- we may very well walk onto that ship and go home. But I would ask- a certain caution to be aforethought…"

…

Zura was bustling about the small vacation cottage, packing the few belongings they'd collected in their time here. She's been tense and nervous as a wet owlcat until Azulon had left, but that seemed to have melted away.

Iroh could swear he heard _humming_.

It was enough to make hand meet forehead, safely out of view, before coming in.

"Home, uncle- after three long years! We're going to see home!" The younger princess was sitting on the floor playing with some of the shells that Zura wasn't packing, and his niece paused to lean over her, stroking her hair. "It's unbelievable!"

"It _is_ unbelievable," he muttered, and his niece continued to bustle, an edge to it that was almost frantic even though she wasn't moving in a rush. "I have never known my brother to regret anything," Iroh cautioned uneasily, and was met with a glare.

"Father's realized how important family is- he wants to see his granddaughter."

"Zura-"

"Uncle- I have to _see_. If it's true- then that's everything I want for her." He grimaced, and watched his niece turn around to drop her armful of clothing. She paused after, resting her hands on the table, long phoenix-tail draped over her shoulder.

"I'm _tired_, Uncle. I want to go _home_."

"I understand- I just don't know if this will be the homecoming you wish it to be."

"I'll take what I can get- I can win glory another day. If I can call the Fire Nation home, see my family, show Lan Min where she comes from for the first time- that's good enough." _I can handle Azulon for that._

Some things just had to be seen for themselves, and he could not cushion all blows. Would that he _could_.

_Why, spirits, must I ever watch my children march off willingly into danger, sure that it will not touch them? Why must it hurt even though the blow is expected?_

…

…

Azulon did not mention when to come, but Zura knows the morning tide and is up at daybreak, gathering her things. Her men are outside and Uncle has them carry the baggage, and, once they get closer to the shore, her daughter, who is happy amongst her many half-uncles.

"If you are going back to the capital- you should begin to practice the etiquette for an Imperial princess. On formal occasions, and this being exactly that, it is not fitting for you to be seen carrying anything, even your own child." He's right, of course- those are the formal rules, although she remembers them being relaxed a time or two, before…

Well. It's not something she's comfortable with, and it's not going to be a very _big_ sendoff, but it's _her_ sendoff and she's going to do it properly. She kisses Lan Min, and settles her in the Lieutenant's arms, where she is kept very well.

She still glances behind, though.

There are Imperial firebenders lining the docks, a salutary gesture she did not expect. Her own, unofficial escort forms ranks and marches between the rows behind her and her uncle.

Azulon stands at the head of the gangplank, smiling sweet enough to choke on.

"Sister- uncle. Welcome! I'm so glad you decided to come." The Imperial benders turn about from parade rest, enclosing the more ragged escort that has tailed behind Zura.

"Are we ready to- depart, your highness?" the captain falters, and Azulon nods graciously.

"Set our course for _home_, captain." Zura glances behind once more, at where Jee had stepped back to the second row with her daughter in his arms.

_Home_, she murmurs as she feels her heart fall, and wonders if she'll truly see it again.

"You heard the prince, raise the anchors! We're taking the prisoners-" and everything stops.

_Why did I ever let myself think otherwise?_

"Your Highness-" the captain isn't faltering anymore. He still gets pushed aside as Zura surges forward. Betrayal burns all the more for being half-expected.

Uncle is shoving and kicking aside guard after guard, red uniforms splashing into blue water. "Zura- let's _go_!" he shouts.

She gets past the first set of guards, and Azulon's simpering smile is now that of a _fiend_.

"You know, Father blames Uncle for the loss of the North Pole- and he considers _you_ a miserable failure for not capturing the Avatar. Why would he want to bring you home except to lock you up where you can no longer flaunt yourself to the world and embarrass him? You, who couldn't even name the father of your _bastard_ when called upon!"

Zura _roars_.

_"YOU'D KNOW, WOULDN'T YOU!_"

There is fire, and flashing daggers made of same, and Azulon may be a prodigy and a perfectionist but Zura is _mad_ and lightning is little deterrent to getting to mar that perfect, pouty face that everyone adores.

Uncle grabs his nephew's crackling hands before he can blast his sister into oblivion and sends the blazing energy out to sea, followed shortly by the boy himself. Zura wants to follow and strangle him but the lack of her child's weight in her arms pulls her back down the gangplank, racing down the docks where her escort has scattered in the confusion, just as panicked as the rows of Imperial firebenders that had flanked the pier and are now bobbing in the water.

They are good soldiers.

Unquestionably loyal.

They have neither hampered the prince in his endeavors, nor gathered behind the princess's personal banner against Imperial will. Such a thing is _death_ without permission from the Firelord, and not to be asked of such good men.

Doesn't stop Lt. Jee from showing up about halfway to the creek with a cut brow and Lan Min in his arms, having stepped back from the ranks as soon as things started going to hell in a handbasket.

"Hurry- they're working on fishing him out of the water. Won't be long before I'm missed." That's _twice_ they've saved her in the last few weeks and uncountable times more when they were at sea and there's no _time_ to thank them more.

Lan Min is crying loud and hysterical and Zura doesn't take the time to soothe her, just straps her on as tight as she can and _runs_.

They make it to the creek and she and Uncle are kneeling, panting- no one's following yet, and they can't make it much farther as they are.

She doesn't want to ask it. She knows it already, but she doesn't want to.

_He was never going to bring me back, was he._

The knife is sharp. She's kept it honed and sleek in all the time since Uncle gave it to her, and Lan Min squirms on her back as she carefully arranges her hands above and slices away her daughter's favorite toy.

She holds it in her hand while Uncle repeats the process for himself, a sleek black horse-tail that's all she permitted herself to keep, after her public disgrace. It was the mark of nobility- an honored follower of the warrior tradition, those who fight so that those who farm may stay safe. Before, she has never actually disobeyed an order from her superiors. Before, they were still members of the hierarchy, both bound and protected by the rules.

No more.

Now it's just her and her screaming child and thudding heart and her uncle who is strong and wise but mostly aged.

The black strands float away on the stream, and Zura feels naked as they make for the West.


	15. Zura Alone

Zura Alone.

…

The road is a bare track and the plains go on forever, rolling up and down into hilly places and cracked here and there with rocky valleys. A lone ostrich-horse walks at an exhausted pace between far-flung earthen coins, remnants of long-ago battles.

In another time, another place, Zura might have been able to conjure up reports about the historical significance, the tactical advantages of the terrain, the length of road and logistics of feeding soldiers on this stretch of land.

Now all she knows is that she is thirsty, and her daughter is hungry, and her milk has almost vanished along with their supplies.

Lan Min snuffles exhaustedly, her tears and cries worn out- she has known storms and strife but never hunger nor thirst before. Her baby-cheeks are sunburnt, and Zura can only try to shade her more with the sling and urge the ostrich-horse on.

Once, she smells meat and turns to glance over the stony ridge, stomach _achingly_ empty. Her swords are in one hand, the other moving to unstrap her daughter-

-and it's a young couple, a husband and a wife on the verge of being a new mother, and she knows if she lets herself beg half she'll spring for it and take it all.

If they're on this road, that means there must be a settlement around here _somewhere_.

It's all she's got to go on, and she grits her teeth and pushes forward.

…

The stranger rides into town with swords on her back and a toddler on her front. There's a story in those eyes, in the battered boys' clothes and cut hair. The scar's just icing on the cake.

The soldiers don't take kindly to strangers, especially not ones who don't cower.

If this girl ever cowered, she's killed that self long ago.

…

"Can I get some water, a bag of feed and something hot to eat?"

"Not enough here for a hot meal…" the merchant says, sympathetic- but not about to cut into his own too-thin margins; he has to eat too. He looks at the tired, fussy child, and grimaces. "I can give you two bags of feed- and there's a couple up the way with a few milk-sows, they might have somethin' to spare for the kid…"

He goes back inside, and the girl stands there, the weight of the kid in the sling pulling her forward and maybe stubborn pride holding her up.

…

Zura glances at the chuckling kids, urchins the likes of which she would have ignored or bought off to go away in the past.

When the egg flies past, the thing that screams to mind is _I could have _eaten_ that, you idiots!_ When the lounging soldiers approach, it's _I don't need this crap._

"You throwin' eggs at us, girl?"

"No."

"You see who did?"

"_No._"

Her hand is on her swords, her arm around the heavy sling where her daughter clings to her, whimpering.

She doesn't bother to respond to the joker, but "Egg had to come from somewhere," well, that's a straight line if ever she heard one.

"Maybe a chicken flew over." And maybe her sense of humor has gone the way of the dragons, hunted down and killed in its every appearance until there's none left. She doesn't care- the merchant's back from his storehouse, and if she can feed the damn bird she can move along and find the well, and maybe the stuff will stew up soft enough so that she can eat it as a mash…

"The army thanks you for your contribution. You'd better leave town, stranger- 'less you wanna contribute a little _more_," and there's no mistaking the leer, even for an ugly girl with few charms and much standoffishness.

Her hands stay on her hilts, and the set of her shoulders is so tight it trembles as they walk away with her coarse-grain feed.

The merchant does not, she notes, offer to replace the feed, or refund her money. She walks away in the middle of his explanation about how the soldiers are just a bunch of thugs, she can see that for herself just fine _thank_ you.

One of the urchins pops his head out from behind the ostrich-horse.

"Thanks for not ratting me out!" She mounts up, tries to pull away, and the boy grabs her reigns.

"I'll take you to my house and feed your ostrich-horse for you-" she hesitates, long enough for him to start leading them along. "C'mon, I owe you!"

Lan Min whimpers again, her newly-learned words abandoning her in her misery, and Zura finally just goes along.

…

The kid is chatty and curious and Zura thinks he's treating her like a substitute big brother, and that's fair enough since she looks sort of like one at the moment. He's curious about Lan Min, and Zura holds him off with a "She's cranky right now."

"Oh," the boy says, briefly quiet. "Maybe she'll feel better after dinner!"

The boy's name is Lee, and his family is small and strained but welcoming. The mother offers them food right away, and Zura wants to hold off but she's got _nothing_ and Lan Min wakes up and she makes a deal- she'll work with Gonzu the husband on the roof for a while, her daughter can have some of the milk that's already been gathered for today. There's an implication that she shouldn't _have_ to work for her supper- or to stand up to the soldiers. But she learned a long time ago that just because you shouldn't have to, doesn't mean you don't need to.

Still, they let her earn her keep- and Lan Min eats first of all of them, so Zura is satisfied.

…

She beds down in the barn, and the decent meal lays heavy and satisfying in her so that she's able to be almost amused when the boy sneaks in and makes off with her swords.

Lan Min sleeps quietly, face slack and sweet with baby dreams. The little fringe of bangs she'd had is growing ragged, and Zura mostly slicks it in with the rest of her hair when she can. There are no spidersnakes or ratweasels in the barn, so far as she can tell, but she bundles her daughter along anyway, careful and quiet in the pleasant night air.

Lee is hacking merrily away at the sunflowers with the dao, and offers them back with a sigh when she startles him into tumbling over. He's iffy about learning sword techniques from a girl- but Zura asks him how many boys around here know how to use them and are willing to teach?

They play quietly, and Lan Min sleeps through it all, though when she makes a burbling snore Zura missteps and Lee manages to score with his pretend leaf-blades.

They run through their energy and amble off to bed, and Zura thinks that if this is what being a big sister to a little brother had been like, she might have tried harder. Azulon never needed her protection- he certainly never needed her advice or lessons.

Sometimes- when she's very, very far away from what he's done or doing- that makes her sad.

But the night is clear and the hay is softer than most places she's slept lately, and simple exhaustion makes for the best, quietest dreams of all.

…

The gang of soldiers rides up as she's about to leave, and of course the good times couldn't last. Sen-su, Lee's big brother, has been captured- and the leader Gao, with his big hammers and his equally fine sense of humor grinds it in with all the grace of a hippocow. Zura's been worked over by experts- she thinks if she dared bother, she could fault their technique such as to leave them in _shreds_.

The jabs don't have to be refined to hit their mark, though, and the family that sheltered her in the night is suddenly on the verge of tearing to shreds and blowing apart with the dusty wind. She can't stay. She can't be a big sister to Lee, not with the secrets she carries and the storm she seems to pull along behind her. Not with her goals.

Still, for the moment- she can't think of a better piece of advice to give him than her knife, and the words inscribed below the hilt.

Never give up without a fight.

_Never_.

Even if that means withdrawing and taking the fight with you to unleash at another time, another place- and that's what she needs to do now.

…

_Everything I've done, I've done to protect you_.

That's as true now as it was then, when the words fell from her mother's lips and not her own.

Lan Min might not understand- all she knows is that she's finally eaten something, and Uncle is not here to bounce her or tell her stories, and she wants him. But Zura couldn't look after two people- not with things like the white jade plant and Uncle being sure he could risk experimenting with it; after all, he had his niece to back him up didn't he? She couldn't listen to her daughter fuss in hunger and come home empty-handed, no matter how low it sunk her.

The pretty things, she could admit, had been a mistake. Dead weight, too distinctive, too- too much. They weren't what she was entitled to, even- just flashy, neuveau-riche junk that had had some of the elements of wealth, of power, but none of the substance.

She had needed to _focus_.

Right now, though, she lets her mind drift as her daughter watched the clouds with her, laying amid tall grass while the ostrich-horse crops weeds.

Lee's mother comes riding up in her rattletrap cart, and it looks like no good deed goes unpunished- ever.

"When the soldiers ordered us to give them food, Lee pulled a _knife_ on them- I don't even know where he _got_ a knife-"

Zura bows her head, and then pushes Lan Min into the weeping woman's arms. It's her mess- she ought to clean it up.

"I'll get your son back."

…

They've got Lee tied to the watchtower when she rides into town. Good kid, to try to run away- the actual army wouldn't _take_ a kid that small, so it's down to the mercenaries to mold him into one of their fellow-thugs, and that won't be a nice process at all.

She dismounts, and pulls off her hat, and stares down the leader right in the street.

"Let him go."

Gao laughs, big and uproarious.

"Who do you think you are, girl, telling us what to do?"

"It doesn't matter who I am," _I still outrank you, dog_, "but I know who _you_ are. You're not soldiers- you're bullies." _I can count floggable offenses and not have fingers left- if you were _my_ official headache, I'd take you out before the people we're trying to make part of our nation and make an _example _of you._

Gao, being the gentleman that he is, passes off the job of shutting her up to his playfellows. They come at her one at a time. Idiots. Thump, smack, _kick_, and they flee without ever seeing the sharp side of her blades.

Then Gao takes out his hammers, and if she weren't so _pissed_ she might be glad of finally meeting a challenge.

As it is, she has to push hard to stand up to the assault- the rocks are slow but heavy, so it's not a matter of aim so much as standing her ground to block them. She slashes stone from the air, catches one to the gut and staggers back. Some of the villagers- okay, one- is shouting encouragement from the sidelines, and she pushes forward-

The ridge of rock sprouting from the ground slams into her, knocks her breathless- but it's the crack of her skull against a rock on the ground that sends her into the dark.

_never forget_

_everything I've done_

_where is she_

_what have you done_

_givememydaughter I'llsaveyou neverforgetwhoyouare nomatterhowthingsseemtochange neverforget_

_get up_

She whirls upright in the middle of a _firestorm_.

The hammers that were inches away from crushing her skull are knocked away with their wielder, back into the street. She leaps forward, slashing fire at the bigger man and driving him back, finally blasting him into the side of an earthen wall.

He groans as she steps closer, swords steaming.

"Who- who are you?"

"My name is _Zura_," and it's _delicious_ to say it again. "Daughter of Ursa and Firelord Ozai." She sheathes her blades and sets one hand on her hip, glowering down at him from a height and daring him to spit at her. "Princess of the Fire Nation, heir to the throne, and mother of the next!"

It's wrong it's bad it's a secret but _damnit_ she _is_ and she will not be denied. Let them _know_ who they messed with.

It feels too good to be strong again.

The silence spreads like water in dust. Then the old man that had cheered her on thumps his cane and shouts.

"Liar! I heard a' you- you're not a princess, you're an outcast! Her own father burned and disowned her for whorin'!"

_So that's how it's bandied about._ She steps expressionlessly toward Gao, who doesn't leer- he cringes. _Good_.

The knife that Uncle gave her is in easy reach in his belt, and she plucks it out on the way to undo Lee's bonds. His mother is already there, and puts herself between the princess and her son.

"Not a step closer." Zura looks at her, at her empty arms, and all the flames that have been smoldering in the dirt go _flat_. She kneels, and holds out the knife to Lee, half-expecting it when he says "I _hate_ you!" and turns away, but not paying much attention.

"Where is my daughter." The fear in the woman's eyes would hurt if Zura didn't know that she was the last one to hold Lan Min. For or of, she doesn't care.

The woman glances back to where her wagon stands in the middle of the road, and Zura stands up very slowly.

"I just stood off four big men to rescue your child," she says, pitched just loud enough to carry. "_What do you think I'll do for mine?_"

Perhaps they remember just how high the flames were when she whipped them through the air. No rocks fly as Lee's mother sets Lan Min gingerly on the ground and lets her toddle her way to Zura. She picks her up and sets her on her hip, her little girl with the gold embroidery picked off her sleeves and face that shouldn't be losing its chubby cheeks so soon.

The packed meal that she'd been offered was abandoned hours ago- but she's got water, and her beast is fed. Maybe between that and the night's rest, she can make it to the next settlement before her milk gives out completely. She might have been able to play the mother-on-the-run card, if she hadn't flaunted her full title and that which Lan Min was entitled to.

The ostrich-horse squalls as she hauls on the reigns and guides it out of town, between rows of angry villagers beginning to heft rocks. If she's out of town in the next few minutes, she thinks she can avoid a lynch mob, but running right now is inciting to chase.

So she keeps the pace steady, and whispers apologies to her baby as they ride into the sunset.

_I wanted so much for you. I still do. And in fighting for one I lost the other, and I think you'd have liked food more than your full royal titles._

_I'll do better._

_I'm still here to._


	16. Tales of Ba Sing Se: Part Two

Tales of Ba Sing Se, part two- teashops, toddlers, and talks long overdue.

…

The streets of Ba Sing Se's lower ring bustled madly- it was like every tiny village market and town square she'd combed through in the last three years all pushed together and grown to enormous size, spanning an endless stretch of walking-distances and battered cobbles. Laundry flapped like pennants between noodle shops and hawkers' stalls, and the wares were many and varied, though none of great quality that she could see. Certainly it was nothing like the palanquin-bound ventures Zura remembered taking with her mother in the Fire Nation capital- for one thing, she wouldn't have been alternating leading and carrying a hefty toddler, much less doing so while open to and mingling with every stranger and peddler from here to City Hall.

A gaudy spray of flowers suddenly filled her vision from the side, and Lan Min exclaimed happily as Uncle plucked her out a bloom of her own to wave. Zura just eyed the arrangement and gave its bearer a narrow look that begged _why_.

"I just want our new place to look nice- in case someone wants to receive a gentleman caller…?" he trailed off teasingly. The girl stopped right in the middle of the street to stare at him.

"Are you serious? After- after everything?" she said incredulously, with a fleeting glance to where her daughter rode along in her arms, still merrily hanging on to her flower. Lan Min looked up questioningly, and Zura shook it off and continued forward, not wanting to have to explain.

The city was enough of a prison without adding complicated attachments or foolish mooning around like- like some peasant-girl in a tale, or girls who didn't have the discipline Agni gave a turtleduck. She'd already seen the sharper side of that blade, and she didn't intend to fall on it a second time.

"Responsibilities are not a reason to close off all possibility of life's pleasures," Iroh replied firmly. "Adversity is everywhere- if we spent all our time scowling at it, nothing would ever get done. Now come on- I found us some new jobs and we start this afternoon."

The young woman could only shake her head in incredulity and follow.

…

The apartment was small. The job was long and more irritating than hard. Uncle, in his infinite wisdom and not insubstantial sense of selective practicality, had found a babysitter for Lan Min in the same tenement their apartment was in, since leaving a toddler alone in a steaming kitchen all day was Not a Good Idea.

The girl was cheerful and clean and offered them good advice as newcomers to the city, and Zura was reminded a little of Ty Lee, only with some sense of reality beyond 'what will keep my best friend the Prince from finding me amusing?'

She didn't want to like her.

So far it had been easy to duck invitations- they were new here, she was busy, thanks for all your help let's just keep this professional shall we? But Jin loved Lan Min, and was willing to let her rates slide a little for a newcomer still figuring out city life, and at least she wasn't teaching her daughter any words like she'd be picking up from the sailors about now. Sometimes before or after work began at the teashop, Uncle would send her out to fetch something and Jin would accompany her through the markets, pointing out this and that- good things for Earth Kingdom girls to know.

"You should try some of these clips when your hair grows out a little more," she'd suggested, biting back a giggle at the look on Zura (_Li_)'s face after the third time someone had mistaken them for a young married couple. "Or- well, some brighter colors wouldn't hurt you. You don't really need to use a lot of facepaint-"

"You mean there's no point to it," Li grumped.

"No, I mean you don't need a lot of it- but you _could_ signal 'girl' if you wanted to. At least enough to keep people from calling you 'sir' when I'm backpacking Lin here," Jin smirked. 'Lin', as she had been nicknamed, was busy staring at all the bright pretty things around with a childish avarice that did not distinguish between candies or cloth, not yet tired of her sling-supported piggyback ride.

Li reached over and thumbed away a smudge from her daughter's face, and stepped back to inspect the picture she and her babysitter made.

"I could probably wear brighter colors and try and look like a proper girl- but who would look?" she said, and Jin could only set her hands on her hips and bid goodbye as she started off for work.

…

He'd been waiting outside of that dinky teashop- it seemed like hours now, although it probably hadn't been that long since he'd switched to the mouth of the alley across the way. There had been a couple different flocks of uniforms going through, as various shifts on different hours got out of wherever they worked. Over the last few days, he'd managed to pick up a little of how this place fit together, as well as Li's habits within it, and it was all very _weird_.

Or maybe he'd just never seen anything like it before- and that experience was becoming scarily common within these walls.

"Jet!"

"What?!" he started, almost biting his straw clean in half before turning around to see the others. _That_ was a relief, and he grinned as his heart slowed down from its jump.

"We need to talk."

"Oh great, it's you guys- how's the job-hunting going?" he said, too casual. Smellerbee looked at Longshot, and at the shop across the way, and then back at him. Her expression did not bode well.

"We've been talking."

Jet looked up at that, brows arching into the start of a frown. "Oh?"

"We think you're getting obsessed with this. It's not healthy- you haven't talked about anything but this girl since we met her, and you're stalking her like a deer. It's _creepy_- and it's not how you get people to join the gang."

"Oh really? You both think this?" Longshot swung his arm around Smellerbee's shoulders in assent.

"We came here to make a fresh start- but you won't let this go! Why does she even need to join the Freedom Fighters- why can't you just- I dunno, ask her out? Or if you've got to start inviting more people to join up, why don't we go find some of the people who _aren't_ just trying to blend in?"

"You remember why we need to start over? How the Fire Nation left us homeless, how they wiped out all the people we loved? Li knows this stuff, only too well- she's _one _of us already, I can _see_ it. And there's no contentment just sitting back after something like that."

Smellerbee was looking down at the ground, wincing. Her short, shaggy hair fell over her bandana and she pushed it back, looking like she was trying to wrestle a boarqupine in more ways than one. She spoke again, her voice almost pleading.

"Jet- if you're going to try and convince this girl, at least do it openly. The whole point's spending time _with_ someone you like, right? Try it, at least- if she doesn't like you, she'll let you know."

He took that easy stance, and she could _see_ him going into the mode where he smiled and agreed until you realized that somehow you'd lost the argument. "So you're telling me that _you're_ trying to give _me_ advice on how to run my love-life-"

She cut _that _off sharp and hard.

"No, I'm _telling_ you that that's the way you're going to do it. Jet, we're trying to start over in a big, big place that has weird rules and a lot less friendly attitude toward just taking what we want. We're not trying to find food, we're trying to find _jobs_. If you want to waste time trying to court a girl who's already got one, you can at least do it face to face so she can cut you off and you can go do something _helpful_. What good's inviting her into a gang that's got nothing to offer?"

He winced then, and glowered- and then finally nodded.

They were right, and he knew it.

"Face to face. I think I can do that." And with every confidence firmly in place, Jet strode out of the alley and across the evening-lit street.

…

Iroh smiled diffidently to the off-duty guardsman that had just complimented his brewing.

"The secret ingredient- is love." Zura tried to restrain a roll of her eyes and went about her business, clearing the table of abandoned cups and heading back to the kitchen to refill her orders.

A sudden _thump_ of the teashop door opening had her raise her head to see-

_no_

Of course.

The wild-haired boy stepped in with a smile, and sat down at a table like any other customer- albeit one who looked like he was about to make trouble just by breathing. Uncle was busy- Pao had a strict policy of people being at least acknowledged as soon as they stepped in, and waited on swiftly thereafter.

It fell to her.

_Crap._

"What are you _doing_ here?" she hissed, after making her way over with a tray of orders, passing them to various customers on the way.

"Having a nice cup of tea, like everyone else," Jet replied easily, still smiling like this was a perfectly nice evening and he was a perfectly nice guy. He looked up at her from his seat, elbows planted, and grinned. "Got any recommendations?"

There were near a dozen off-duty guardsmen taking their breaks inside the teashop. Pao was probably watching from the kitchen. She needed money to pay the babysitter and to not make a visible, memorable scene.

"I'll see what our resident expert has to say," she said flatly, and stalked off to the back.

…

The boy was still sitting there.

Three rounds she'd brought to him, shying away from his gaze, his lightly conversational requests. The guards who were only on break had gone back to their patrols and their station-house, while those who were off completely still lingered, enjoying the improved atmosphere of Pao's shop.

He didn't ask any rude questions. He didn't _touch_. But that boy could make perusing a menu- or asking for her translation, since he didn't know many of the characters- into something coolly rebellious or lascivious or some obscene combination of both that would have had her ancient cousins Lo and Li boxing his ears for sheer innuendo.

It made her wonder just how many other girls had gotten that same set of lines out of him.

It went _on_, him sipping and watching until finally Pao was starting to count the cash-box and Uncle was winding down the last few pots and setting things on to soak. She was sent out to give final bills and clear tables as the late customers left.

"Closing time," Zura ground out. "Pay up." The bastard looked up with a smug twinkle in his eye, reaching for where he kept his coin.

She watched him pat around for it.

Watched increasing desperation stretch across his face as he realized just what a night's drinking even in a cheap tea-shop cost in Ba Sing Se.

Zura glanced sideways at the remaining uniformed guards about the place, and smiled.

…

Longshot tapped Smellerbee's shoulder just in time for her to see Jet- their fearless leader- being propelled at great speed out of the small teashop's door. He landed in a heap and was followed shortly thereafter by what looked like half a pot's worth of cold tea.

"-bill-dodger! And don't come back here again unless you're _serious!_"

The door shut hard, and they scurried over as Jet began untangling himself with a groan.

"I _told_ you that wasn't a good idea!" Smellerbee said.

"-she outmaneuvered me this time, but I'll get her yet-!" Jet was exclaiming, trying to shake them off gently and mop off tea at the same time.

"Get her how? Jet, the woman just tossed you out on your ear!" she cried in despair. It was no use. He had the bit between his teeth and a bug in his ear and there would be no reasoning with him until he'd run his course or gotten his head kicked in.

Longshot offered a reasonably clean handkerchief to both of them and didn't even bother to roll his eyes.


	17. Lt Jee Babysits

A brief step backwards here- the prompt is, Lt. Jee spending time with Lan Min.

…

This is Lt. Jee.

Lt. Jee is a very fierce man with a fierce mustache and an even fiercer vocabulary. When he finds something amiss, sailor-boys tremble and grown men shiver in their shorts.

Lt. Jee is also charged with the duty of tending his royal captain's infant daughter when she is ashore on business. This means that he goes about with the tiny girl strapped to his chest, a solemn burden and joyful ward. She goes everywhere with him, and is probably one of the few who will be able to legitimately say she learned to sail before she learned to walk.

Of course, when her mother the princess returns from her business ashore, and puts aside her armor and her own fearsome temper, she hugs her daughter tight and asks, what new words did she learn today?

The answer has Jee standing before the captain, receiving some fierce vocabulary of his own.

So now when Lt. Jee's about his duties, he does not swear, not even at the ensigns or midshipmen (who can be _very_ annoying). Now what he does, is point to the small, widely curious girl chewing on a toy as she dangles firmly harnessed from his chest.

He points out exactly what has been done wrong, and why it is such a bad idea on a ship. He explains the million and one ways the ocean can kill them even when everything is running exactly right on the ship. And then he asks them if they feel at all right, contributing to the level of risk and danger this little girl, this darling young princess of theirs will face.

The crew really wishes he would go back to swearing.


	18. Tales of Ba Sing Se: Part Three

The weeks go by, and Ba Sing Se swallows them up like an ocean. They are nothing here, and no one. There has only ever been the daily flurry of tea-making and serving platters, of ambling the markets and coming home to a tiny apartment with thin walls and crisscrossing lines of laundry for a view.

This city is a prison.

But a prison, Zura reflects, where no one is trying to kill her, and where her daughter eats every day and giggles rather than whimpers, is a seductive one indeed. She does her job, and damns the world with every clattering teacup.

Uncle is painfully cheerful, and she loves him- but once again, his calling and her duties are not lining up.

The really annoying part?

In as big a city as Ba Sing Se, the world is still divided into little quarters, spheres of we-all-use-this-baker, that-bathhouse, we-answer-to-_these_-guards and _those_-gossips. Meaning that as long as you live _within_ a neighborhood, some people are just hard to avoid. Walking around the marketplace- working in a teashop- even waiting on the landing outside one's apartment, the street is wide and open and Certain Persons will show up there.

Zura's not certain if there's a different standard of courtship for peasant girls, or if she's just paranoid.

At least she has her routine to amuse her.

…

"_Hey, Li- want to go see if we can't find some fun?"_

"_Get out unless you can pay for tea."_

"_Hey, Li- Jin's traded off with Smellerbee and there's a really awful sword-juggler on the corner of Sixth and Monkeyfeather Lane- you wanna go see the show?"_

"_Away with you, vagabond!"_

"_Hey Li- the stars have fallen down and I'm wearing antlers."_

"_GET OUT AND- wait, what?"_

"_Just checking."_

…

After the first three times, someone jokingly put out a hat and a guard actually wrote them both tickets for unlicensed street theater. It cost her a day's wages and she doesn't know how Jet paid his off, but at least since then the so-called Freedom Fighter has toned things down a bit.

This is very good for him, because she might be inclined to turn up the force with which she ejects him if he hadn't. She _needs_ those tips.

Her friend Jin- for she can't call her anything less anymore- happily babysits for her most days of the week, but is talking about finding someone to trade off days with, because she's still got other work to do for her own household. For today they're okay, though- and Zura kisses Lan Min goodbye in her play-pen before thanking her friend once more and taking off for Pao's shop.

There are shadows three in her wake, peeking around the corner.

…

After the Thing with the Tea Shop that was never to be spoken of again (no matter how many times it was repeated), Jet figured that taking some time to establish himself and his gang properly in the city would not go amiss. While he never let the actual truth of circumstances stop him when he was on a roll, having a position of substance to fall back on never hurt anyone.

There was just one problem with this.

It would seem that living in the woods had not prepared Jet at _all_ for the modern civilized job-market.

Smellerbee had said at the outset that they would have to get jobs once they got out in the world, and the basic principal had seemed sound enough- service for others, pay for you, coin to trade for what you need. Not exactly Freedom Fighting- but Ba Sing Se was supposed to be a place where you were already free, and they had to _survive_ there before they could help keep it that way.

Only everywhere he went, he got turned down, and to a very similar litany of whys. He had no experience in their line of work; he wasn't a match for their style; he'd better be off before they had him arrested as a vagabond. He was too scrawny for the hard work and too dangerous for the soft. He couldn't read the characters on the menus, and the army didn't even _have_ a recruiting board that he could find.

It was, Jet mused, as if the people of Ba Sing Se had no recognition for talent when they saw it.

Still- it wasn't in him to give up. The idea simply didn't cross paths with him. And thus, when he saw the same men in the harder streets of the lower ring, always furtive, always brazen, making their rounds just like the guards did, he began to get the glimmerings of a plan.

…

The knock sounded, and Jin opened the door.

"Hi, Jet."

"How'd you know it was me?"

"Two minutes after Li leaves. You're not as subtle as you think you are," she said with a smile, folding her arms. "So, what's it this time? We've already established that your boyish charm goes over like a lead balloon…"

"Actually," the country-boy said, grinning sheepishly. "I was looking for more- practical advice. I was wondering what you could tell me about the guys who hang out around the Black Shirshu… _-whoa!_"

He stumbled in following the grip on his collar; Smellerbee and Longshot followed close behind and the door shut behind them.

"What," Jin panted, "would make you think I know anything about them?"

Jin was not an unkind person. She would warn someone if they were holding a live firework or about to step into an uncovered sewer, as well as to not buy from Old Man Bu's meat-pie stall in the middle of the week. And so she spent the next half an hour, right there in her parents' kitchen, informing the Freedom Fighters why getting involved with the fellows who hung out around the Black Shirshu was a very bad idea.

"They're the people you go to if you have a problem that you can't take to the guards. Not that there's not some things you can't take to them, either- some things- you just don't do or say," she hastened to warn. "But for new immigrants, ones who don't know the ropes- they can be the people to talk to, first."

"Okay…" Jet drawled, working his trademark straw around in the corner of his mouth. "They- take care of problems? What kind of problems?"

"Oh, all _sorts_ of problems. You hungry? They'll feed you. You need work? They'll find you something- loan you a little to tide you over, too. Justice hasn't been done to your satisfaction? They can do it for you- up to a point. And they do it neat and clean, because that's the only way they're allowed to work."

"Who lets them work?" Smellerbee interjected, as Longshot was pegged with a stuffed platypus-bear and turned his attentions to Lin in her pen. The two-year-old grinned up at the gangling archer, and he set his hands on his hips to face her down.

"No, don't give her attention, that just encourages it- the guards. The guards, and the people who watch the guards," Jin replied, plucking the abandoned toy off the floor. "The Black Shirshu gang- and the people like them, in other places- they take care of the sticky things that the higher-ups don't want to hear, make people feel like they've got a court of last resort. And if _they_ don't take your case, you're prettymuch done."

That straw of grass flipped from one side to the other in a contemplative roll.

"Explain to me how helping people who won't get help from the authorities they have to obey is a bad thing?" Jet said at last.

"Because you have to obey _them_, too." Jin got up from the table, set the toy bear back in the pen with her friend's daughter. "Having no money? Is different than _owing_ money- especially to the gentlemen at the tavern. And if you get a favor- you owe them. If not in money, in favors, if not in favors, in letting them get involved in your work and helping them do _their_ business, just a little at a time. And if you don't make good…"

Longshot glanced over his shoulder, and Smellerbee had the pinched look around her face that said she'd probably guessed.

"-they take it out of peoples' hides?" their leader filled in, eyebrows arched to the ceiling.

"Got it in one. And you can't do anything about it, because you're in with them, and you can't take it to the guards," Jin said with an air of finality. "You're not a Good Citizen anymore. Spirits alone help you if you're actually one of them and mess up, because then you've got nowhere to run and no mercy coming. They serve a purpose, when everything's going smoothly, but when the chips are down- things can get very bad, very fast."

"How do you know so much about this?"

Jin looked at Jet, at his two friends, at the toddler who was getting ready to demand attention from them by any means necessary. The sparkle that was ever-present in those firefly-eyes was gone, and she picked Lin up before she could start fussing, bouncing her on one hip.

"Once upon a time, I had a brother."

…

_Well_.

…

"You got the information?"

The alley's dark but not chill this time of the morning, and Smellerbee's perched on a crate, Longshot keeping his archer's eyes on the surrounding rooftops.

"It checks out- the local 'grandfather' is Big Yan in the butcher shop. He's an important man in the neighborhood, but not real openly rich. Donates to charities. People talk about him like he's good to know, but bad to owe."

"Hn- that sounds like our man. Now if we could just arrange a meeting…"

"Jet- we're supposed to be changing our ways. No more vigilante justice, remember?"

"Relax, 'Bee, I'm not gonna start busting up shipments or laying out traps for thugs. But- doesn't it seem like we ought to check out these guys who're supposed to be watching out for us refugees? See if they're actually doing it, or if they're just preying on the weak and helpless in their most desperate times of need? 'Cause I gotta tell you- that sort of _traitor_ thieving," and Jet's voice is _dangerous_. "-would _piss_ _me off_.

Smellerbee looks at Longshot, who flicks dark eyes slowly at Jet, then nods once.

She thinks of being hungry, of being desperate, and what would have happened if Jet's offer had been false when she took it (_he breaks you down and builds you up but he doesn't farm you for a little extra meat_).

Smellerbee finally nods, and resigns herself to being a Freedom Fighter a little longer.

_At least he's got something else to think about besides that girl._


	19. Interlude Ba Sing Se

Interlude- betwixt the Tales of Ba Sing Se…

…..

It wasn't that the boy had notions of honor, no- he was a lowdown, dirty rotten son of a bitch fighter who had skills to back up the ruthlessness. No- what he had was delusions of _grandeur_. He thought himself the hero in a rebel-tale, him and his crew- mad as marching-hares, and not in a way that was useful. It was a genuine shame, this Jet kid had the makings of one hell of a flim-flam man; when he spouted off his swamp-rot, he _believed_ it, and he made you want to believe it too. The only problem was, he had but one keg to tap, and that was all about the war and the refugees and all sorts of things that were interesting to the wrong sorts of people.

And he _wouldn't stop spouting it._

Big Yan had no use for that sort of thing. He had survived this long knowing that while a certain amount of greased palms could allow him his business, there were just some aspects of the world that were off-limits. No one in his operation questioned or cared about whence came the refugees that they both fleeced and cultivated. Didn't matter who you knew- questions like that would get you a short vacation at a long lake, and a goodly stretch wandering some other neighborhood far from your own, trying to figure out who you were.

The boy wouldn't do for his line of work. But- because he was a kindly man, and it _was_ what he did- perhaps he could throw a few scraps out, a hook and line, and see if the boy settled down enough to reel him in for _real_ work somewhere down the line.

Be a shame to let that kind of potential slip through his fingers.

…


	20. Tales of Ba Sing Se: Part Four

"I'm supposed to believe that you're finally independently wealthy enough not to try and mooch off me for free tea?" Li says at the back door of Pao's shop. She's got a broom in one hand and a bucket to the side, and she stares at the empty cart they've left at the end of the alley. "What on earth have you been _doing_, these last few nights?"

There's guilt on one face, dirt on another's hands, stains on shoulders that have been scrubbed but linger still.

"We're- gathering supplies, for the apprentice doctors in the school. I figure it's good enough work- I mean- how many times have we needed a doctor and not had anyone?" Smellerbee explains, embarrassed under her red-striped cheeks.

She's seen carts like that, ritual _carvings_ like that, just as battered and bleached in the alleys of towns across the Earth Kingdom. She's seen them in the Fire Nation Imperial _Capital_.

No matter how hard the priests and civic workers try to hide it, death is everywhere.

"We're doin' good work in the community, baby," Jet finishes with a good-natured smirk.

"You're robbing graves and desecrating bodies!" Li yelps indignantly, looking at Jet with a dawning horror. The Freedom Fighter crosses his arms and looks back at her defiantly.

"Hey, I just deliver the stiffs to people who can make good use of'em, I don't rob anything!" Not least because the pockets are already picked over by the time the Freedom Fighters get to them- you could fight to the death for the living and keep the deads' souls in your heart, but the flesh left behind wasn't using the coin. "And who're you to turn up your nose at honestly-earned money, anyway?" Spirits, he's actually, _really_ pissed off about this-

Wait, how had he forgotten about that bucket-?

_splash_

"Out! Get out of this teashop- and don't come back until you've washed, all of you! And _you_, don't come back at all!" she shouts especially at Jet, although that never does any good. Smellerbee ducks the worst of it- Longshot stands for a moment with his hat dripping before ducking a nod and turning, hoping to avoid the bucket that's going to follow the water. That projectile finds Jet instead, tangling their leader's feet and sending him sprawling in the dust of the street.

Smellerbee turns back to see Li grabbing the scrub-brush and attacking the stones they'd stood on furiously- and it looks like she's reaching for the salt, too.

"Maybe we should reconsider this line of work," she says bitterly as she helps Jet to his feet, before they take off running.


	21. Tales of Ba Sing Se: Part Five

(I am alive! Life got interesting, and things refused to gel the way I wanted them to until just about right this minute. I hope what I've got here is still entertaining, and thank you guys for all your lovely comments.)

Jet has never yet found an obstacle he couldn't climb, dig under, sidestep, convince it was in their own best interest to move aside, or, in last resort, blow up with-

Well, he _had_ succeeded in blowing up the dam. It just hadn't done him any good. And the Water-girl had refused to _stay_ where he'd managed to turn her head, and her brother had proved just as twisty in his own way as the best of the Freedom Fighters-

So he was taking a longer detour around what had turned out to be a greater obstacle than he'd ever before realized (the War, the world, and their place in it were all so much _bigger_ out here). It had taken him all the way out here in a straight shot to Ba Sing Se, and he was only just starting to see where the curve might be ahead.

But nowadays, at last, he was beginning to make some headway. Yan the Butcher- literally, but there were rumors of otherwise- had finally taken Smells, Longshot and him off grave-snatching duty, after he'd shown just how well they could defend the turf of their employers. All of Small Spirits Cemetery and pauper's field was now ripe pickings for the sons of the Black Shirshu's hard-faced men, who wanted their offspring to grow up proper soft-handed scholars and doctors.

Jet had smiled, and accepted the reward of a job well done, and soothed his stomach with the thought that you had to look deep into the dark of the wounds before you could find out where to prick out the poison. At the end of the day, he was one step closer to his goals, and could turn his mind to much more _pleasant_ riddles.

Like Li.

Li, Li, _Li_- Li who yielded up secrets like fields yielded up stones, in plenty, insoluble, and with great likelihood of breaking the plow that turned them up. He could make out the _shape_ of them plain as day, but he couldn't get at the _meat_- you'd have better luck tickling a boarqupine.

She bore weapons and scars, but her hands were _fine_ things under the callus and mistreatment. She tried to act humbly and (not very) pleasantly, but radiated 'don't touch me you damn _peasants_' when the work wore hard on her- like she'd rather be walking the rooftops or traversing palace halls or _anywhere_ but here, honestly.

The skills, the attitude, the fine features under harsh treatment- these were the marks of a bred fighter- a _noble_. And from there- a lot of things came to light. Nothing stings like failure- that wounded pride that snarled and snapped, the tight don't-touch-me don't-try-me face said _shame_ (a noble girl with battlescars and a firebender baby- someone had sent her into the field too early, or turned on her when she hadn't succeeded in fighting off invaders). Shame that she wasn't going to sacrifice more to- so she'd bolted, and ended up here.

Here where she grew tenser as the mask of the tea-server grew tighter, and there was nothing for her to do or to be but _mundane_.

The thought about broke his heart.

Maybe-just-maybe he could make some opportunity for that sword-wielding spirit to come out again and _play_.

….

It's a long game, but one he's played before. And when that masked figure appears along the walls, inching away from sight, Jet feels a flare of pride that he's still got that touch of inspiration.

It's not unusual to see shadows on the rooftops in Ba Sing Se, but when the moonlight plays off them, generally it shows more green than blue.

...

"You should've seen it- Old Kwan was going _nuts_, trying to figure out what happened to his shipment- whoa," says Jet, the mad, bad boy who's become a feature of her daily routine, for all her trying. He's looking at her funny; like always, but funnier than usual. Li just picks up empty cups and sets them on her tray, the motions automatic and performed as if somewhat underwater.

"Trouble?" he asks, like it's not his middle name.

"Lin was fussy last night," she says, and gives a smile through desperately sleepy eyes. Jet looks her over, head tilted. He makes a face that looks as sober as a judge's, and turns to where the girl is playing with Longshot's hat, whilst Longshot himself is juggling his wriggly armful.

"Did you make trouble for your mommy? Naw, lookit that face, who could make trouble with a face like that…"


	22. Interlude

It's on the way home between shifts one night that Jet stops and looks up at the building where Li lives. She's out in front of her apartment with her daughter, sitting cross-legged on the railed landing. They're watching the fireflies that float up from the small gardens at the base of the tenement, sitting in the light of their open window to catch the evening breeze.

He sees a hand dart out and scoop one of the little blinking lights from the air, opening close to little Lin's face, the baby with the bright gold eyes. Li's looking down with a smile on her face that only ever comes out around the kid, and even then it's rare. She lets the dragon-mask go, and her eyes soften and the everpresent fangs get put away. Her daughter laughs and then stares with awe at the tiny light in her mother's hand.

Jet can't quite match that sight to anything he can remember- eight years old is a very long time ago, and what's left he tries to keep safe, buried deep in the dark. It's the _losing_ of it he keeps emblazoned on his sleeve, a banner to fight under and a constant driving lash.

But still he wonders; _is this what I fought for?_ Was that what was supposed to come after, when there was no more fighting to be done and you'd put in your share?

New lights dance around the two of them, the girls who should have been sisters instead of mother and child, and he watches that lean, pale hand reach out and scoop the sparks from the sky. Watches it fold over, and gently snuff them out.

Li is kissing her daughter's hand, and saying something, maybe admonishing her. The new sparks stop, and the genuine fireflies came back out to play.

Jet walks on.

The next day, he catches her hand in the tea-shop as she hands him his ginger, and traces the smooth, unmarked palm, watches her eyes flicker in mingled distrust and want.

He smirks, and drops his coin to pay for the drink, and walks out with a shiver.

_Wrong hand_, he tells himself.

The city's underbelly calls, and there's work to be done.

…


	23. Things Fall Apart: Part 1

Things Fall Apart- Part 1

"Did Jet just- die?" Zura had a look on her face, like she was trying to stay as stone- it didn't work with the cracks showing through at the base.

"You know-" Sokka replied, "-that was really unclear." He was about to go on, but the play proceeded apace and the special effects for Appa's flight to the Earth Kingdom's palace were _spectacular_.

Katara watched as Zura lowered her head, curling in on herself and her baby.

"You knew him?"

"…for a little while."

…

…

"_-but the thing is,_ the guys they have us shaking down, the ones fresh off the ferry? Are saying the attacks are coming even _closer_. One of the guys was a farmer who's lost his land because a _giant drill_ popped through on it- and no one inside the walls has heard a thing!"

"Jet…" she says, turning away with tea-tray in hand.

"There's something wrong- I've known it since the day I set foot in Ba Sing Se, but there's something really _wrong_ with this city. The war goes on, and no one seems to remember it- and the gangs work with the guards and anyone who talks about the war too loud or too often gets _disappeared_-"

"Jet, I don't want to hear it."

"We could really use your help tonight. I'm _this_ close to busting this whole thing wide open-"

The tray _slams_ down across the table.

"_I don't want to hear it!" _

She's glaring at him, hot and fierce, and it's a good thing he's the last person in here or he thinks there'd be running and panic.

"Come on, Li- you know this place is the last chance, the last place on earth that people are safe from the Fire Nation. Doesn't it bother you that they're not doing _anything_ to protect themselves? That they're leaving everyone vulnerable?"

"It bothers me a whole lot more that you're sitting here looking to draw them _down_ on us. I can't afford this- not with Lin waiting for me at home. Either knock it off or don't come back here, I don't care which."

Now a look of mortal _offense_ crosses Jet's face, and if he had his usual straw it would be switching like a cat's tail.

"What's with you lately? I _know_ you- you're not one to just spout the party line like a coward-"

Li goes rigid.

"-and you don't let people suffer. Not like you did." He realizes the mistake almost at once, but holds on, watching, measuring the reaction. She's getting a look on her face, that high, haughty, icy _sheen_ he's only really seen her break into once or twice at her angriest.

"Do not. Do _not_ presume."

"To do what? Remind you of your duties? Where's that noble's pride, huh? All that big talk about being a warrior, protecting your people being the reason you high-born folks exist?"

"I failed my people a long time ago."

"What- because of the baby? Li- you can't blame yourself for that. You have to keep _fighting_, or it's going to keep happening-"

"I TOLD YOU _NEVER ASSUME!_"

…

_Every light in the place goes white-hot._

…


	24. Things Fall Apart: Part 2

Things Fall Apart- Part 2

The rankings of the Dai Li do not correspond exactly to those of the military, or of the guard. Those who catch sight of them generally don't keep looking to try and differentiate between them, and the markings of rank are subtler than the amount of braid on the coat or the pattern of bandana on an agent's queue.

But there is an awful lot of green-black and gold converging on the street where the old teashop stands. Is mostly still standing. Those blinds needed replacing anyway.

The commotion has mostly died down, but there's a girl sobbing, and the boy has run, and a stone-gloved hand motions information that halves the number of visible agents on the ground. The crowd disperses, understanding by merest glimpse of that certain profile that everything is under control, and those that remain are the ones with the most information to share.

The old man is as cooperative as any in his position might be.

"Gentlemen, my niece has just been through a _very_ trying incident, surely we could speak inside…?"

The swords clang to the ground as Pao's teamaster firmly sweeps them all indoors.

…

_How did we get from saying I love you-_

…

A look of utter betrayal spreads across Jet's face, a rising horror that speaks of tasting poison in a lover's meal, of blades nestled just _next_ to the vulnerable flesh of a beating heart.

"It wasn't just the baby. It was you- _all_ of you. You're _all_ Fire Nation."

Zura reaches out, then holds back. "Jet-"

"No! It can't be- you-!" he's rising now, pacing, weaving back and forth like this is some blundering opponent he can dodge. "-_NO!_"

Zura knows she could take him down with one blow if he looked like he was about to run or to shout or to attack. She stands- ready, but without intent. Her arms are at her sides. She looks at him with hurt, not with anger.

This can change at any moment.

"Mushi's in on it- he's the leader, isn't he? Or- is he the fath-" He's scrambling, trying to save this situation for himself, for her, to come out of it without the need to destroy what he's come to hope for.

"_No_," she says firmly, looking at him dead on. She cannot let him have that illusion, not even as a saving grace. "No. My uncle- is my uncle. He always has been."

Jet's looking at her like he's begging her to recant, like he wants to tear his hair out. She turns her face away, and suddenly he reaches out, turns her toward him so that her scar is where he can see it.

"What about this? The exile- I thought-" She bats off his grip, leveling a glower at him that fades in the wake of his devastation. "-thought they'd held you down, or afterward- for colluding-" Still trying to save her honor to himself. It would be sweet if it didn't make her so angry.

"I was branded as a coward, shaved as an adulteress, and exiled," Zura says in a dead voice. "For my sins against my family's honor and my country's."

"Were you a renegade?" A month ago, he wouldn't have even thought about that possibility. He wouldn't have needed to _ask_ it.

"…not the way you're thinking," she says quietly. _I just wanted to keep my daughter safe, that's _all_ I ever wanted; I wouldn't dream of conquering the Earth Kingdom, the thought never crossed my mind; I spoke out against an untenable policy, I'm _good_ Fire Nation_; a thousand mitigating half-truths come to mind, but the thing about half-truths is that they're half _lies_. _I want _my_ honor back, I want my glory, my destiny, to be worthy of my father and never fall out of line again. I want my daughter and I safe high above this muck._

She hates lying, not least because she's so _bad_ at it.

You're not supposed to lie to people you like.

She's not _supposed_ to like him.

"I told you you didn't want me in your gang."

"You lied to me." He's backing up, letting his hands drop away from her. The _revulsion_ in his face is frightening.

More, it's pissing her off.

"I _never_ lied to you- and _you_ were the one who kept pushing! I told you to go away, and you _wouldn't leave me alone!_"

…

_How did we get from saying I love you-_

_To I'll see you round some day?_

…

The night is cool and dark and green, and the fury's bleeding off him in chunks, like billows of red steam, and he _can't-_

Jet knows how to stay in a good mad. And it makes him _furious_ that he can feel how it's slipping away even now, knowing that she's turned his head around, his stomach inside out. His swords rattle on his back, his fists clench as he stalks down the cobblestones, and it fits that there is no one brave or stupid enough to cross his path.

And if it's angry tears that are running down his face, it's just as well that no one can see them either.

The alleys take him towards the district where Smellerbee and Longshot are waiting for him, ready to get on with tonight's job- the one that's going to get them in closer, where they can finally do some real good. His heart's not in it. Jet curses the city and its false-peace for making him soft, for filling his head with poisoned dreams. Ba Sing Se is a trap, lulling like a poppy-granate that dulls the edges even while it pretends to feed a starving boy's hunger.

The worst part? He's ready to turn around and head back to where he left her, throw away his plans and his brains and his instincts to try and wipe those raging tears off her face, when Big Yan's men loom out of the alleyway.

Even in the city- it's a sign when all the little animals go quiet, and the trail seems deserted.

His back arches like a cat's while he grins friendly to his unsmiling companions.

"You just couldn't pipe down and keep quiet, could ya."

It's going to be like that.

"Always figured discretion for the better part of cowardice, myself," this country-boy drawls, and his hooks flash out. He officially does not have time for this.

Neither do they, and Big Yan's men have been doing this to talented upstarts for a lot longer than he's been alive. Pain is a bright burst in the back of his skull, and Jet spits blood and disbelief as their hulking shapes close in.

"Pity you couldn't just have stolen from the boss or fouled up a job- naw, you had to get _public _about that little tiff. Public's not a word we can afford, you understand." Heavy arms wrap around his.

"Floating in the canal woulda been easier- you got a date with the Dai Li, boy."


End file.
